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FG projects 60 million traffic annually
*Sets to announce bidders for airport concession, national carrier in two week
The Federal Government has indicated its desire to raise passenger traffic from the current 15 million recorded annually to 60 million with the provision of world class infrastructure at many of the nation’s international airports.
This is coming as winners of the bid for airport concession are expected to be announced in a fortnight. Government would also announce modalities for setting up a national carrier for the country.
Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika unfolded these plans on the side-lines of stakeholders’ forum held in Lagos on Saturday.
He however stated that it would be difficult to achieve that objective with the decrepit state of the aerodrome, adding that that informed government’s decision to concession the four major airports of Lagos, Abuja, Port-Harcourt and Kano.
Government, he stated has approved plans for concession of the aerodromes and the setting up of national airline that would be private sector driven.
Sirika noted that government came to the realisation of concession, disclosing that government no longer has the quantum of money to invest in infrastructure. To him, the quantum of money required to invest in infrastructure is no longer there.
His words, “It is a very good thinking and philosophy to go the way of PPP in driving our projects through, especially at the airports. Nigeria’s traffic is about 15 million passengers at the moment but if you have robust airports and very strong carrier out of Nigeria and a very good leasing company to fund it, have a very good search and rescue system, to argument the insurance within the continent, it will be a very good one for the country.”
“The focus is that of Nigeria will quadruple. It will multiply four times, and which means that once these airports are in place and the national carrier is flying, if you multiply 15 by 4, that is 60 million passengers. That is what is waiting to be tapped into.”
We believe in what we are doing. We have not done half yet, we have done our studies, and we believe it is doable. Now, what we are doing is to convince Labour and other stakeholders to come and partner with us and achieve it in the interest of our country”, he added.
He allayed fear that government is not trying to sell the assets but wants to partner with investors who will bring in their money to improve the state of the aerodromes and make them comparable to what are obtainable in South Africa, Egypt and Europe.
Nigeria had in 2013 spent over N500b on airport remodelling without appreciable impact on facilities at the airports. Experts were of the opinion that the fund was not judiciously utilised following decay that sets in few months after some of the airports were allegedly remodelled.
Speaking on the initial pessimism that trailed the concession project, the Minister said that came about because stakeholders did not understand what government was trying to do.
“I think it is just that they did not understand at the beginning but gradually, their fears are now allayed. What happens to pension, what happens to them at the time the concessionaire will come in? I want to tell them that the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) will continue to exist.”
“We have done that of the seaports and the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) still exists. FAAN will exist, they are the owner of the airports, it belongs to the people and they are the owners of the property. We are not trying to sell the airport. Therefore, we will keep FAAN, they will provide those services, they will oversee the general concession and make sure their assets are not destroyed or wasted.”
He noted that while projected passenger traffic is expected to rise to 20 million in the first one year after concession, more hands he reiterated would be required to provide services leading to more employment of people as against the loss of jobs.
Sirika said all legal frameworks including an Act of the National Assembly are some of the processes that must be followed in carrying out concession.
“Part of it is that you have to carry out feasibility study for this concession. We have so far identified the companies that have responded and within the next two weeks, we will announce eventual winners and who the national carrier bidders are.
“Government has approved our plans. We are carrying Labour along and for the first time, because we mean it, because we mean well, because we are transparent, we have asked the unions to bring two people to join the committee that we set up to deliver this process, he added.
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