Union Queries NAPIMS’ Power To Terminate Bristow Contracts

The Leadership of Air
Transport Services Senior Staff Association (ATSSSAN), has queried the statutory powers of the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS) to terminate Bristow Helicopters contracts in Nigeria.
The union in a statement issued by its National President, Comrade Okewu Benjamin, in Lagos on Wednesday questioned the authority on the grounds of which NAPIMS gave that directive to Bristow Helicopters.
Okewu explained that NAPIMS is only but a corporate services unit of the Exploration and Production Directorate of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and therefore has no powers to terminate the Bristow Helicopters contracts instead of the regulator, being Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NIAA).
The union leader said that the NCAA was the only organisation recognised by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to grant any airline operations and declare it unsafe to fly.
The union’s chairman noted that the technical audit of the NCAA was carrying out its standard procedure used all over the world to ascertain the airlines’s unfortunate incident of February 3, 2016.
The labour leader rather advised NAPIMS not to use the unfortunate situation of the airline crash or ditching, to play the politics of diverting Bristow contracts to other parties where they seemed to have vested interest in the name of safety.
The union reminded NAPIMS management that it was too early to make a conclusion on the cause of the emergency landing of Bristow-operated Sikorsky helicopter in Lagos on February 3, 2016, stressing that all parties should wait for the final report and decision of NCAA’s audit and directive on the incident.
Okewu also urged President Buhari to call NAPIMS to order over its directive to terminate all contracts with Bristow Helicopters.

Stories  by Philip Okparaji