Minister Charges FAAN On Cleanliness

The Minister of Aviation,

Mrs Ada Oduah-Ogiemwonyi has urged the management of Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to clean up the rot at airports, upgrade facilities, embrace and adopt new technologies as well as put customer satisfaction at the centre of its activities.

Mrs Oduah – Ogiemwonyi gave the charge after her maiden briefing by the management of FAAN following an assessment tour of the authority’s facilities in Lagos.

Stressing that it was no longer business as usual, the minister noted: “We must ensure that for whatever we have for now, we must make it look better than it is now and we must consider customer service, customer comfort and customer security in all we do.”

It has to be customer, customers, customer, customer all the way if you want to be in business, she continued and urged the management to alter its thinking towards investment through the production of a strategic roadmap.

The aviation minister charged the FAAN management to rise to the challenges of the 21st Century so as to remain competitive or risk going out of business, adding that the dynamics of present-day air transportation  had change remarkably, hence the agency must change its work ethic to remain competitive.

“FAAN must change its attitude to work, you must know that the dynamics of air trnasporation have changed and you must, therefore, change with the times, she stressed.

At the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), she was told of the huge debt being owed by some airlines. NAMA’s Acting Managing Director, Mazi Nnamdi Udoh told the minister that Arik Air is owning the agency over N2 billion. Expressing shock over the debt, she directed that a committee be set up to negotiate immediate terms of payment with the airline within 30 days or be stopped from operating, saying that the airline must be alive to its contractual obligations to the agency for it to be able to provide a safe airspace for Nigeria.

Mrs Ogiemwonyi, however, implored the agency to explain commitments in terms of acquisition of equipment, overhead cost and staff welfare and enjoined NAMA not to rely on the government but to look inward to boost its internally generated revenue (IGR).

The minister said immediate steps should be taken for the implementation of a single Total Rader Coverage of Nigeria instead of the different radars covering different parts of the country, noting “we need to have a total national radar coverage as a nation, that is just one radar to cover the country and I know it can be done as it has to be done now!!

On the numerous landed property of NAMA littered across the country, she directed that modalities be immediately put in place to dispose them as they no longer have any direct bearing on the operations of the agency and directed the management to seek approval from the relevant quarters to commence the disposal process.

Shedie Okpara