$500 million airports Dec. completion date not feasible
*House of Reps to hold public hearing on aviation sector woes
The $500 million airport terminals under construction by the Chinese construction firm, China Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC) may not meet December 2016 deadline. The project would not be completed middle of next.
The House of Representatives however expressed disappointment with the slow pace of work, stressing that the Lagos terminal was delaying the quick completion of the four terminals.
Nigeria and China had, four years ago, signed a $500 million loan pact for the construction of the four new international airport terminals in Abuja and three states.
The 20- year, 2.5 per cent interest loan for the project has a grace period of seven years before payment.
The other three locations for new the terminals are Lagos, Port Harcourt and Kano. Chinese construction giant, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), which is handling the contracts, assured it would deliver the four new terminals in March 2015.
The project was expected to have been completed a year ago, but Nigeria’s default in paying her own counterpart funding had helped to delay the project.
The loans reflect the deepening economic ties between oil-rich Nigeria and China, which already is involved in building major road and railway projects in the country.
Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Aviation, Nkeiru Onyejiocha at the inspection of aviation facilities with her committee stated that with the snail speed at which the project is going on, she doubt if the contractor would be able deliver the project to the Federal Government in December 2016 as earlier planned, urging the contractor to make haste so as to meet the deadline.
According to her, ‘They said they won’t be able to deliver by December but I them know that they should understand that we took loan to build this and the Chinese government is not going to wait for us because agreements have been signed.
So the repayment period would start when it would start unless they go back to drawing board to renegotiate and you know we have three other terminals that we are hopeful would be delivered by December and so what it simply means is that Lagos is lagging behind and we would take it seriously.”
Meanwhile, the Committee stated that it would call for public hearing on the planned concession of four major airports in the country by the Federal Government to ascertain the true position of things to decide whether to go ahead or not.
Onyejocha stated that the committee would look into the planned concession by organising public hearing for stakeholders, which include airline operators, agencies, unions and the media.
He added that the essence of the public is to hear from all the stakeholders in the industry, adding that on her personal opinion she does not think concession is the best solution considering the fact that the four airports to be concessioned are the ones feeding other 18 other airports in the country.
According to the Chairman, ”I am one person who don’t believe that we should concession the four major airports that we have because I know it is those four airports that are funding the other 18 international airports and of course you have to look at the issue of workers and of course the Nigerian people as a whole. If we concession them and people are going to make money and be okay, why can’t we do it?
He continued, “Having said, I also know that we are going to conduct public hearing where we would take all the issues together, where we would be able to ask Nigerians and of course the key players in aviation industry; the stakeholders including the workers, the press to tell us what you think. We would also look at the issues of the concession that has been done in the past. We have to evaluate. How has it helped, how did we do it? Did we get any benefit from it? And if we have, then we see where we are going to do the same. If we have not, then why? What are we going to do differently?
“So I believe that very soon by next week Nigerian people are going to talk to us on the issue of concession. I don’t want it to be my personal opinion. We are going to listen to Nigerians, we are going to listen to stakeholders, we are going to listen to all aviators and we are going to listen to the Ministry themselves.”
Meanwhile, the Director General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA),Capt Usman Muhtar has appealed to the House Committee on Aviation to enact a law that will enable the aviation industry to access foreign exchange from the Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN).
He made the appeal when the committee led by its Chairman, Nkiruka Onyejeocha visited the agency today at NCAA headquarter at the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), Lagos.
This is as just the Committee asked NCAA to strengthen the economic regulation of the agency to further improve of domestic airlines in the country.
