Chinedu Eze
Pensioners of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) have expressed their disapproval of the planned concession of airport facilities by the federal government.
The government said it does not want to privatise the airports because it wants to continue to retain its ownership but plans to give them out in concession to private investors so that they can inject money to develop and modernise them for a given period of time and after which, they revert back to government.
But in a statement issued by the pensioners and signed by Rasaki Ope and Emeka Njoku, Chairman and Secretary of the body respectively, the pensioners argued that government had decided to concession without considering some vital issues.
Such issues they pointed out include security of the nation. a They said, ” In our recent position, we mentioned about security of this nation-Airports are not built to make profits but to link this nation with other countries in the world therefore, it should be guided with all necessary machinery.
“We posit that, at present the Chinese are still constructing and expanding international airports, which the Honourable Minister wants to concession to foreigners. This is a clear case of colonisation,” the statement said.
The pensioners quoted the Minister of State, Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika to have said that one of the reasons why government decided to concession the airports was lack of management performance.
They noted: “If he feels the present management is not competent he should bring good hands to manage the airports. If he lacks appointment clue we can help him select competent hands.
“We want to posit that, these four viable airports are being managed by Nigerian over the years and it was graded category A and not foreigners.
“The union is asking this important question why Arab companies. We all know the antecedents of Arab states. Where we find all types of people with questionable characters (we are afraid).”
They therefore urged the Minister to bring out the blueprint of all those he wants to concession “our sovereignty to”, so that the security agents can investigate their activities.
“KLM was brought in some years ago to manage Nigeria Airways; they left the airline worse than they met it without putting any meaningful structure in place.
“Also of note is the high level of incursion into the vast acres of land at MMIA with the connivance of people from the Aviation Ministry thereby stalling room for future expansion of the complex.
“The Minster should rather focus his attention on the previous and some present officials and unofficial land grabbers who have bought acres of the airport land,” the pensioners said.
They also noted that for the avoidance of doubt, Bi-Courtney Aviation Services “they are referring as a good example of airport concession through Public Private Partnership is not an airport wrongly claimed but a terminal operator. Since Bi-Courtney has been operating the terminal, it has been one court case or the other with the FAAN and its purported plan to take over the GAT claiming it was part of the concession agreement. The company has refuse up to date to remit what is due to FAAN for the services it has all along being enjoying from the authority.”
They also observed that another example of bad concession that has been running foul in the mouth was the concession of the revenue collection of FAAN to MEAVIS Nig. Ltd which later led to series of court cases and eventually MEAVIS left without fulfilling the tenets of the agreement entered into.
“We are therefore sending a warning signal to the Minister of Aviation to retrace his steps as regards the planned concession of the four international airports which were made viable by Nigerian cum workers of FAAN.
“We now ask again, why not concession all the unviable airports to the so called experts or investors to make those viable?” the pensioners asked.
