The director general of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Capt. Musa Nuhu, said on Tuesday that Nigeria’s domestic airlines’ debts to aviation agencies rose to N42,000,000,000 and $7.8 million in the last few months.
Nuhu made the revelation in Abuja at a stakeholder’s meeting held with indigenous airlines and ground handling companies.
A breakdown of the debts showed that the airlines owe NCAA N19 billion and $7.8 million from accumulation of the statutory 5 per cent ticket sales charge and cargo sales charge (TSC/CSC) respectively.
The airlines are also indebted to the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) to the tune of N18 billion and N5 billion, respectively.
The debt to FAAN accrued from non-remittance of landing and parking charges, while that owed to NAMA is the accumulation of unremitted terminal and navigational charges.
Addressing the stakeholders, Nuhu raised the alarm that aviation agencies would collapse soon should the airlines fail to defray their debts immediately.
He therefore issued a one-month ultimatum to the carriers to sign a memorandum of understanding with NCAA on how they would service the debts.
Nuhu expressed his displeasure with a letter which the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) addressed to the minister of aviation, Mr. Hadi Sirika, and accusing the agencies, especially the NCAA of killing the operators softly with multiple charges.
He noted that the airlines and the entre aviation industry were going through a difficult period.
He explained that all the charges collected by NCAA are statutory and in compliance with the Civil Aviation Act 2006.
According to him, the airlines are not responsible for the payment of TSC/CSC, but only collect such on behalf of the agencies from the passengers and wondered why the operators would accuse it (NCAA) of engaging in multiple levies.
He said for any of the charges to be repealed, it would have to go through the national assembly and must be signed into law by the president.
He also said out of the 5 per cent TSC/CSC, the agencies still remit 25 per cent of the revenue to the consolidated revenue account created by the federal government.
Nuhu therefore advised the AON to always crosscheck facts before going to the public.
“NCAA relies 100 per cent on its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). The 5 per cent TSC paid by passengers is 85 per cent of NCAA revenue, while the other 15 per cent comes from airlines as payment for services provided and they are all cost recovery. We don’t also impose any excess baggage charge on the airlines. I wonder where the operators saw this.
“The airlines have intentionally refused to pay the debts owed us despite the fact that they have collected such from the passengers. The airlines collect money and refuse to transmit such to the right authorities. AON wants us to provide services for free for them. What the airlines are trying to do is to defunct NCAA. You have refused to give us our legitimate money. The fees we are charging the airlines are just cost recovery and we are actually subsidising the airlines,” he added.
Also speaking, the acting managing director of NAMA, Mr. Mathew Pwajok, reiterated that the charges of the agency are minimal when compared to other countries around the world.
He confirmed that the airlines owed the agency over N5 billion for services rendered to them over the years.
For his part, the managing director of FAAN, Capt. Rabiu Yadudu also confirmed that the domestic carriers owed the agency N18 billion.
He debunked the claims that that it charges the airlines indiscriminately as stated in the AON petition to the minister.
Yadudu also denied the claim that FAAN was not imposing any new charge (s) on the airlines, stressing that the landing and parking charges for international operators were last reviewed in 1998, while those for the local airlines were reviewed last in 2002.
The FAAN chief said there was the need for the charges to be reviewed, stressing that within the period, the airlines had reviewed their airfares on numerous occasions.
Responding, the managing director of Skyjet Airline, Mr. Kashim Bukar, questioned why Nuhu brought up the matter.
He said instead of going to town with it, the NCAA should have invited the operators to a closed door meeting to discuss the issue.
However, the managing director of Overland Airways, Capt. Edward Boyo, apologised to the NCAA for the letter.
“I’m a trustee member of AON. On behalf of AON, I hope to apologise to you on the letter. The letter wasn’t intended to have this effect. Some parts of the letter were inappropriate. We apologise and I want to crave your indulgence to drop the issue,” he said.
Also commenting on the matter, the vice president of AON, Mr. Allen Onyema, said he was seeing the letter for the first time and expressed disappointment with some of the contents in it.
