The imperative of strengthening NCAA for efficient oversight
The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) was established by Decree 49 of 1999 of the statutory responsibilities of ensuring regulating, monitoring and promotion of the safety, security, economic and reliability of air navigation oversight in line with International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) standard and recommended practices.
Prior to 1989, the regulations of the aviation industry as well as provision of air traffic services were carried out by the Civil Aviation Department (CAD) of the Federal Ministry of Aviation.
Sequel to the adoption of the National policy on Civil Aviation of 1988 by the Federal Government, the Federal Civil Aviation Authority (FCAA) was established under decree 8 of 1990 as an Aviation regulatory body and took over the function of CAD. However, this was in addition to the Nigerian Airports Authority (NAA) which had been earlier carved out of the CAD in 1976 to manage Nigerian Airports.
Towards the end of 1995, the government undertook a re-organisation of some government Parastatals in the aviation industry and as a consequence, the FCAA was scrapped.
New Directorates of Safety Regulation and Monitoring and Economic Regulatory and Monitoring were established in the Federal Ministry of Aviation, to replace the Safety and Economic function of the defunct FCAA while Air Traffic Services and Aerotels department were merged with the former NAA to form Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria.
The above preamble quite illustrates the importance the government places on safety which led to it establishing the aviation regulatory body as an independent, autonomous critical aviation agency. How truly is NCAA autonomous if all the ingredients of autonomy are not well defined or structured in a way that would guarantee that independence?
Yes, the supervisory role of the Ministry of Aviation has been commendable but the regulatory body needs to be given more powers to be earn the sobriquet of ‘independence’. No Minister has given the agency the ‘freedom’ it requires than the current Aviation Minister, Hadi Sirika.
This freedom has allowed the agency to save huge billions of Naira at a period many of the agencies are going cap in hand to seek loans for payment of workers’ salaries following the outbreak of COVID-19 that impacted the revenues of many of the aviation parastatals.
One of the ways to guarantee the autonomy of NCAA is the way it is funded. NCAA is funded by five per cent ticket and cargo service charge, which means that it won’t depend on government for its sustenance. But since 2015 the agency was categorised as revenue generating agency and made it compulsory for the agency to pay 20-25 per cent of its gross revenue to the federal government.
Not a few agree that the regulatory authority ought not be categorised as revenue generating agency.
NCAA needs the funds for the continuous training of its manpower. It is also remarkable to note that that the NCAA needs to scale up salary for inspectors and other technical staff in order to attract the best to the agency so that the agency would be able to provide better oversight.
Despite calls for review of revenue sharing formular, experts have called on the Federal Government to shelve the idea of tinkering with the agency’s revenue earning, stressing that the idea would expose NCAA to corruption and inefficiency that would have monumental effects on safety, aircraft inspection, remuneration of key officials and highly capital intensive training of critical staff of the authority.
It would be recalled that the Civil Aviation Act (CAA) passed by the National Assembly in 2006, section 12, sub-section 3(a-e), mandates the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to collect five per cent charges on Passengers Tickets Sales (TSC), Cargo Freight Charges (CSC), Chartered Flights Invoice Charges (CIC), and share the earnings to the agencies that provide the necessary safety services to airline and private aircraft operators.
The law provides that the NCAA shall earn 58 per cent of the total earning; Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) 23 per cent; Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) nine per cent; Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) seven per cent, and the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) three per cent.
A top official of NCAA, who spoke to journalists under strict condition of anonymity said, “What we have been witnessing is the micro-management of the agencies. But why attention should be paid to that of NCAA is that it is a sensitive agency in which if things go wrong, aircraft will start falling from the skies.
“The agency needs enough funding to retain high crop of its technical staff, it needs to be autonomy to run its activities as it should be but this has not been so,”
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