The chairman, house committee on aviation, Mr. Nnolim Nnaji, has appealed for caution in the planned demolition of private hangars obstructing some of the boarding fingers at the new terminal of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, (MMIA) Lagos.
Nnaji gave the advice during the recently-concluded joint oversight inspection tour of the airport by the senate and house of representatives committees on aviation.
He said the obstruction was not taken note of during the initial construction of the new terminal noting that rather than spend billions of tax payers’ money on compensation “FAAN can restrict the use of the affected fingers to narrow bodied aircraft and deploy the money that would go for compensation to the owners of the facilities to the building of additional terminal.”
Similarly, the chairman, senate committee on aviation, Mr. Smart Adeyemi asked FAAN to submit the cost of the demolition and compensation due to the owners of the hangars to the two committees for consideration before going ahead to demolish them.
“We are the representatives of the People and we must be sure that the resources of the country are not unduly wasted.
“We must weigh the options and if the amount to be paid out as compensation does not make sound economic judgement we will not allow it,” Adeyemi said.
He also stated that the commissioning of the new terminal was long overdue considering that it was built with borrowed funds and that Lagos Airport generates over 60 percent of the authority’s total revenue earnings.
