The Nigerian Civil Aviation
Authority (NCAA) has called on all operating airlines indebted to the authority to commence remittance payment of outstanding and current payments or risk appropriate sanctions.
Director-general of the regulatory agency, Captain Usman Muhtar gave the directive while unveiling his policy outlook for 2015.
Muhtar said NCAA has reordered its priorities, noting that it would henceforth concentrate on everything that is germane to ensuring safety, security on airlines and emphasis on issues that do not have direct bearing on safety and security in the aviation industry.
He said to rebuild the authority’s finances, there must be cut cutting measures, so that there would be enough resources for training, workers welfare and other priority expenditure, adding that NCAA is not distressed but it has introduced measures to prudently manage its lean resources.
“NCAA is not distressed financially but wastages are being curtailed”, Muhtar said, pointing out that training and retraining of staff is his priority hence the management has issued a circular to all the staff to submit its proposal for training in 2015.
As part of the cost cutting measures, the agency would henceforth conduct overseas training for those on level 12 and above, while the training of others would be held locally.
We found out that some of the trainings that are held overseas, like in Dubai are organised by Nigerians who live in Nigeria but travel to Dubai or London to organise such training, so we want such training to be done locally this will save the authority some resources”, said the general manager, Public Affairs, Mr. Fan Ndubuoke.
According to the Director General, the authority would not rest on its oars but would ensure a greater efficiency and sustenance of the robust regulation that has been the hallmark of the NCAA.
Usman Muhtar, who was former Commissioner of Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), observed that 2014 was an accident free year and to maintain such good record in the following years, complacency would have no place in NCAA’s regulatory functions, rather it would be strengthened by adequate training of staff this year.
He thanked the management and staff of NCAA, saying the 2014 accident free year was as a result of the contributions of all and, therefore, called for sustained and incremental efficiency in all their tasks to surpass similar  feat achieved last year in 2015.
Muhtar gave kudos to all the airline operators in Nigeria and the foreign carriers who equally ensured safety and security in their operations.
He noted that the volume of traffic is increasing and therefore advised the operators to ensure compliance to NCAA’s safety guidelines and regulations, noting that while the primary safety lies in the purview of the operators