Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development Festus Keyamo says some of the policies put in place by this administration has helped guide growth in the aviation sector
Keyamo who made this known while presenting a score card of his administration at a stakeholders forum in Lagos noted that on assumption of office, he ordered the movement of operations from the old terminal building of the murtala Muhammad International Airport Lagos to the the new terminal which was not in use upon completion.
He said another major thing was that a strong case was made for the over 830 million dollars trapped funds for foreign airlines were not released, but within months Nigeria was able to meet up the obligations to foreign Airlines.
“Within the first six months, we are happy to report that we cleared all our obligations to foreign Airlines and if you go to the website of IATA, there was a commendation issued by IATA, infact not one, not two, series of commendation. IATA was pleasantly surprised that Nigeria could rise up to the occasion and clear the debt”
” One challenge we still have in this regard before, but I think the policies have made it easy now, is that while we are taking care of the foreign Airlines, we still had a problem with the local airlines. We also had a challenge of making sure they also have access to forex, because I understood their problems when I came that they could not easily access forex to get most of their parts in”
He assured that with the policies of this government access to forex is no longer a problem to the local airlines, as they can access forex because they don’t have to depend on Central bank of Nigeria.
“It is a credit to the policy of this government to the wizardry of Mr President, financial wizardry of Mr President that these things have been eased’
He also disclosed that with the dodgedness of Nigeria’s leading airline AirPeace, Nigeria was able to open up the London route which was suspended and break the monopoly of foreign Airlines and that route has come back to Nigeria with AirPeace operating it
Keyamo noted inline with his five point objective for the industry, safety is key and as such all will be done to oversight the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority NCAA to ensure it adheres to safety standards
He noted that the other objective is the development of infrastructure either through PP or through other airports and that has to do more with FAAN and NAMA, Navigational equipment and Aeronautic and non Aeronautic side of the airport
He noted that for the history of Nigeria a deliberate policy was made to support local airlines and as such government must support local airlines.
Ensure that the local airlines get the needed support to strive adding that the other objectives has to do with human capacity development and ensure training of personal
He noted that the fifth of
the the objectives is optimising revenue for the interest of the passengers .
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