Nearly four months after Mr. Hadi Sirika, Minister of State for Aviation, directed the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to pay 5 % of the Passenger Service Charge (PSC) it collects to the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), the agency has refused to comply.
Nearly four months after Mr. Hadi Sirika, Minister of State for Aviation, directed the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to pay 5 % of the Passenger Service Charge (PSC) it collects to the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), the agency has refused to comply.
FAAN sources disclosed to SaharaReporters at the weekend that the FAAN management disregarded Mr. Sirika's directive because it was viewed as not following due process.
The non-compliance, said a source, has angered Mr. Sirika, who is said to be seeking a political solution to the impasse. The source added that though the top management staff of FAAN and AIB have had meetings on the matter, no fund disbursement has taken place
“For the first time, our management has disobeyed the minister by not remitting any amount of money to AIB from the PSC. The management is saying that the order was unilateral and it will not stand. Though Sirika is not happy about this, so far, he has not been able to do anything on the issue.I think the minister is looking at a political solution to the matter. But I don’t think the FAAN management will obey the order. I also learned that the AIB management is not happy about the delay in releasing the fund to it, but there is nothing it can do for now," disclosed the source.
A fortnight ago, accounting staff of the two agencies met at the FAAN headquarters do reconcile figures so far remitted to FAAN as PSC by airlines. The meeting, however, yielded nothing concrete. Previous ones had delivered the same outcome.
Early in June, Mr. Sirika gave a ministerial approval to AIB for the collection of a percentage of PSC collected by FAAN. However, the move attracted criticism from the majority of sectoral stakeholders and workers' unions, who view it as a violation of the act that set up the two agencies.
A Ministry of Transport document made available to SaharaReporters showed that AIB generated N460, 259.314.54 from various sources in 2016. It also showed that the projected revenue of the bureau was N559,496,849.93 for 2016
According to the breakdown contained in the document, AIB earned N900,000 from tender fees and N459,359,315.54 from the 3% share of Ticket, Cargo, and Charter Sales Charges.
The document equally showed that the AIB had a revenue projection of N6,922,571,007.53 for 2017. A breakdown shows that the AIB expects to earn N500,000 from tender fees, N822,071,007.53 from 3 percent share of Ticket, Cargo and Charter Sales Charge and another N6. 1 billion from the 10 percent share of PSC.
Of the total projected revenue, the document showed that the AIB earmarked N5.2 billion, an equivalent of 79.52 percent, for capital projects.
