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The federal government has commissioned consultants who are now developing all the master plans of all the airports across the country that will be sacrosanct.
Nigeria’s minister of aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika revealed this while speaking virtually at a programme organized by Phillips Consulting (PClL) with the theme: ‘Aviation in Nigeria:What Next?.
At the event which was organized in conjunction with the South Africa Chamber of Commerce, Sirika said following the ongoing development of the master plans, that there will be no more allocation of lands until the master plans are in place while the initial document will be out this month.
“ In Abuja, they have given us 12, 000 acres of land. It is going to be the biggest airport in the whole of Africa in terms of land size to allow people doing business including airlines, MRO, and leasing companies, all these airport plans including Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Port Harvourt, Enugu are all Trade Free Zones. This is another support the government has done which I think is in line with what the government has done for aviation including the removal of Value Added Tax (VAT) for aviation, Customs Duty on aircraft and spares, and making all airports free zones.”
Sirika who said another aspect of the roadmap being developed was to have cargo facilities in such a way that will allow movement of both perishable and non-perishable cargo goods around the world and around the country.
“I am happy to say that four of them have been completed, Abuja and the rest of them. We are also building seven more. The contracts have been awarded in Ekiti, Kaduna, Jos, Katsina, Yola, Calabar, Port Harcourt and Enugu. We are attending to that and all of these are being developed under the roadmap. You can imagine the ability to ferry out of let’s say Katsina 40 tonnes of tomatoes into England. The amount of Foreign exchange you are going to earn is enormous. You can imagine flying tomatoes chilly and pepper or onions to PH from Kano because if you go by road, you will spend 28 hours and they will perish before you get there but flying 45 minutes or one hour will take them there fresh and you will have them there. This is also part of the roadmap.”
Sirika used the opportunity describe the fears being nursed by the domestic airlines that the proposed new national carrier, Nigeria Air will displace them as unfounded.
The minister who said if the government had an ulterior motive for setting up the national carrier that the requests the local airlines had demanded in the past would not have been granted.
His words: “AON has dragged me to the House of Representatives, and Senate with all meetings held. Their concern is that if this airline is established, there would be a price war, they will underprice everybody, drive away all of them, and jerk up the price six months along the line and remain the only player. Well, I think this is laughable and this is not the case, AON also knows so because our laws provided that any fare increase or decrease must be with consultation with stakeholders which is the airline and everybody else, and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and the NCAA won’t allow that to happen. To tinker with the price of tickets, it has to be with the stakeholders, airlines, and the rest of them including the NCAA. Their fear is unfounded.
“ If we have an ulterior motive, we would not have been approving airline requests day in, and day out during my tenure as Minister. I have always approved their requests. Just three weeks ago, the United Arab Emirates approved some of our airlines, and Ethiopian Airlines also approved for them to operate. Most of the airlines came in during my tenure as Minister. There is no single request by any airline that I turned down to Banjul, Dubai, to London that I turned down. Even the fear of Air Peace with Emirates was a case in point. We have never stopped any airline from wherever they want to go.
“Our reason for doing this is to help to nurture, sustain, to support airlines and other businesses in aviation, and by so doing, they will employ Nigerians. None of them ever asked anything that was turned down. There is no airline down to taxi driver that ever gave me tickets for free or I asked for anything from them. We are more than ready to support entrepreneurs in the aviation industry, to push them abroad to go and do business. I have given them the London route which is lucrative. I have given them Dubai. I have given them anywhere they want to operate. We will continue to support them to ensure they are profitable.”
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