As the Minister of Transportation and the Minister of State for Aviation are on the verge of appointing new managing directors to head the aviation agencies and other transportation parastatals, the workers in the air transport sector are insisting that only seasoned aviators should be appointed to head the various agencies.
THISDAY gathered that the workers through their unions have made it clear to the ministers that they do not want “political jobbers” to head the aviation agencies but seasoned aviators, serving or retired.
It has become imminent that heads of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) and the Director-General of the Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NIMET) may be replaced soon and the workers are demanding that only aviators should be appointed as their replacements.
Sources close to the ministries have also hinted that of imminent changes in the parastatals under the Ministry of Transportation, including the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), the Nigerian Shippers Council, the Nigerian Inland Waterways and the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC).
The workers in the aviation sector have alleged that over the years, there has been invasion of people from outside the industry who were pushed to the agencies by Ministers, National Assembly members and the presidency officials, noting that this is a tradition started since the democratic governance in 1999.
A senior official of FAAN told THISDAY that a major setback in the agency was the imposition of outsiders who were not knowledgeable in any aviation field to man its critical departments and directorates. This, he said retrograded the efforts being made to grow the agency and significantly improve its financial contribution to the coffers of the federal government.
“If FAAN’s burden is not addressed, it will become a burden to the federal government. That burden is having 11 directorates in an organisation that used to have only four directorates. These additional directorates were created for political compensation. Hitherto, before the political interference in the agencies, FAAN used to have four directorates, so we must go back to the old system but now one directorate could be added to make it five.
“So we can have the Directorate of Administration and Human Resources, Directorate of Finance, Directorate of Commercial/Business Development/ Cargo, Directorate of Engineering/ Maintenance, Directorate of Airport Operations and the Directorate of Security Services or Aviation Security (AVSEC),” the official said.
The unions are insisting that the agencies have the qualified persons that could be appointed to high positions and insisted that outsiders who do not have aviation experience cannot handle any area in the industry, as they lacked the required expertise. They noted that aviation is highly technical and can only be manned by people, who were trained to understand different aspects of the industry.
“Within FAAN there are highly qualified personnel who can run FAAN efficiently without the political appointees who come in at the directorate level. We had witnessed a situation in FAAN where a director, a general manager, deputy general manager and assistant general manager who take very critical decisions in the agency were all political appointees who came from outside the industry. These people took decisions that were most often inimical to the progress of the agency because of incompetence and lack of knowledge of the industry. These were some of the factors that inhibited the growth of the agency and other agencies in the industry,” the official said.
Another top official of the Air Transport Service Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN), who also works with FAAN expressed the regret that government spends money training aviation personnel locally and internationally in such a highly regulated industry but most times these people trained were not given the opportunity to fully serve this country in their capacities; so they are underutilised because of political interference. He said the positions they ought to occupy were given out as pay-back to political jobbers who were appointed to take crucial decision on the way forward for the agencies on issues they lacked the technical know-how.
“Now that we are experiencing change we expect that things should be done differently, so it is time to look inward to pick those who have knowledge of the industry to head strategic positions in the agencies. These people could be retired or still serving as far as they are aviators. They should look at their track records: experience and appointments.
“But within the last four years or so we have aviators who turned themselves into politicians and force themselves into every administration or Minister that is appointed. We are calling on the present Minister to be weary of such people or they would do what they did to past Ministers by displaying high level of impunity with disregard to extant rules,” the unionist said.
The union leaders also said that government could realise its goal in the aviation industry, which is to grow the sector to be able to contribute meaningfully to federal government coffers and also empower domestic airlines if the right decisions are taken.
“This is a new chance to government and going the old ways will not bring the desired change which this government encapsulates as its key for development, the union leader said.
