- Leveraging travel with sports: Adeboya wins Turkish Airlines World Golf Cup series
- Plaudits for Acting DG NCAA, Najomo for aviation sector reform
- Ibom Air acquires two CRJ 900 aircraft
- Minister faults motion on airstrips, chides Reps to study how aviation works
- NCAA’s prompt passenger complaint resolution extolled
How Nigerian Airlines Can Get Out Of The Woods, By Expert
For Nigerian airlines to get out of the woods, the Federal Government must insist on clear-cut criteria on how to assist them so that whatever intervention government plans to give them is not mismanaged like the previous N200 billion handed to them some years ago.
That was the view of a member of aviation think-thank, Aviation Round Table (ART), Group. Capt. John Ojikutu (rtd), in a chat with WoleshadareNews.
He noted that there is nothing wrong in providing assistance to the country’s ailing airlines. He said that Nigeria has been giving out financial interventions to the wrong people and airlines and most times without input from the Ministry of Aviation, leading to the money being squandered.
His words: “Government, before now, had no criteria to determine who was entitled to intervention funds and debt concession. There were evidence suggesting that the last intervention of over N200bn given to some airlines had no input from the Ministry of Aviation.
A new entrant in the industry with little or no knowledge in the industry at the time of disbursement of the fund, got a substantial part of the fund and shut business thereafter.”
To now sustain operations in the industry, he said the government must come out with criteria for airlines to be entitled to zero duties or zero Value Added Tax (VAT) on aircraft spares.
Ojikutu however, cautioned “Government must be mindful of some aircraft owners who release their private aircraft to certain operators to engage in air transportation for the purpose of hire and reward in public category either for non-schedule or charter without holding air transport licence; these could substantially be in violation of the NCARs particularly part 18.2.2.1 and 18.2.3.1 and should not be in consideration for zero custom duties and zero VAT.”
According to him, no one is adverse to government providing succour for domestic airlines, but there is also need for a proper diagnosis of some of the issues before dangling the same prescriptions for them.
He stated that no one would have problems with government giving a life support to the ailing Nigerian aviation industry, but tasked every discerning mind to question the rationale behind the continuous provision of same prescriptions in financial model for same ailment without sufficiently diagnosing the ailment.
He noted that the financial prescriptions have come in various forms and names; stressing that if it was not intervention fund, as it was for the government operators during Obasanjo/ Fani-kayode era and Jonathan/ Oduah era, it would be debt concession as it was in Yaradua/Njeze era.
“Today, what is being prescribed are zero custom duties and zero VAT on commercial airlines aircraft spares. All these financial prescriptions in eight years are only for private operators in the industry.”
Ojikutu further stated that the problems of the industry generally are poor management structure and lack of adequate skilled manpower, inefficient supervision from field managers and ineffective professionally inclined inspectors to enforce compliance to regulations.
On the part of the Nigerian airlines, he disclosed that the problem had always been that of single ownership resulting always to uncontrolled diversion or divestment of funds, especially the generated earnings, from sales including the government intervention funds, to private uses and other businesses.
“These are reasons why there had been no significant improvement in the quality of services provided in air transportation by both public and private operators,” he stressed.
Google+