The aviation labour unions, the Air Transport Service Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN) and the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) have indicated their support for the planned concession of airport facilities on the private, public partnership (PPP) arrangement in order to reduce financial burden on government.
However, the unions said they would support the concession arrangement if it protects the interests of the workers.
Senior executive members of ATSSSAN told THISDAY that the unions are not opposed to the concession but are only interested in the welfare of workers and to ensure “no staff is short changed”. The unions also said “there should be agreement on modalities of the concession between the government’s concerned agency and the workers, “otherwise we will resist it.”
“On a patriotic note, we will not want to see our industry go to individual hands in the name of concession, so as not to compromise the security of the nation. Worldwide, core concessions of airport facilities are being revisited because of terrorism. Different governments of the world want to take control of air transport in their countries to ensure security of their citizens. Ours should not be different because of security activities worldwide,” an ATSSSAN executive said.
In his speech after a recent tour of airport facilities, Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi said the medium and long term plans to improve transport in Nigeria would require significant investments to upgrade and expand infrastructures to meet current and future requirements; “as a result of limited resources for capital projects development, government is exploring the possibility of private sector participation to towards the realisation of the industry’s potential.”
He noted that the transportation sector holds the key to any economy and forms the basis of all socio-economic interactions.
“Like many other countries, Nigeria suffers the bane of inadequate transportation but perhaps worse than other countries. Nigeria’s huge population puts enormous pressure on a very poor transport infrastructure that bedevils the nation.
“The problems of Nigerian transport system include bad roads, inadequate fleet of busses and trucks; irregular and inadequate trains and airplanes services and congested ports. In line with these, are physical problems such as dearth of suitably trained transport managers and planners, capital restructuring bottlenecks, serious issues of institutional reforms and ineffective traffic regulations,” the Minister said.
Stakeholders in the industry reason that concession would not only free funds for government which it would deploy to provide social needs for the citizenry, but would also enhance airport upgrade, modernisation and profitability.
But the unions argue that there must be legal and administrative frameworks that would serve as guide to concession so that it would be a win-win for both government and the private sector.
The union officials noted that all concessions that had been done in the aviation industry in the past were against the interest of government because they did not follow defined modalities.
“It is because of the shoddy way the concession of the domestic terminal in Lagos, known as MMA2 was done that government is not benefitting anything from it. In fact, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) should be receiving annual payments from Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL) but we get nothing. We are not even sure they pay for the services of security, marshallers and utilities; that is not what we want,” an ATSSSAN official also said.
