How Airport Remodelling Projects Accumulated Over N174 Billion Debt –Senate Committee

By Chuks Okoh
The Hope Uzodima – led senate committee on aviation has given clarifications on how the Ministry of Aviation and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria ( FAAN), accumulated debts running into N174 billion for the third phase of the airport remodelling projects.
The projects were initiated by former aviation minister, Princess Stella Oduah.
According to Uzodinma, the debts accrued from critical airport projects. The projects, he said were not covered under 2013 budget, even as the senate committee on aviation was not carried along .
The projects , he further said were embarked on by the ministry of aviation and FAAN without prior approval and funds captured in the 2013 budget .
Speaking during an inspection tour of routine oversight on the aviation sector on Tuesday in Lagos, Uzodinma said government is going ahead to re- prioritise the projects to be covered under the 2014 budget, which has been signed by President Goodluck Jonathan .
He assured that airport projects that are undergoing construction at different stages would be completed in line with their timeline, as contractors handling them will soon be mobilised by government .
He said the committee observed that the size of the new international terminal being constructed by the China Civil Engineering Construction Company under the $500 million loan in Lagos is small in size as the alteration in the construction design may affect the passenger capacity of the terminal .
He said the management of FAAN and the senate committee will look into grey areas to ensure that the terminal construction is completed as a world class facility .
The senate committee chairman on aviation urged FAAN to fix the gap in the air conditioning system of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos as the epileptic state of the facility does not fit the Lagos Airport as the aviation hub of the country .
He said FAAN should embrace the new procurement policy of government by engaging manufacturers of airport equipment to enable users of the facility have value for money .
On the comatose calibration aircraft inherited by the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency ( NAMA), from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority ( NCAA), Uzodima said the two agencies should collaborate to fix the aircraft, as the huge sums of money so far spent to make its console serviceable has not yielded the desired result .
He said the committee is impressed over it observed during its visit to the Lagos Airport, urging aviation agencies to cooperate with the committee by opening up in their challenges to enable the committee consider areas of assistance in budgetary approvals .
Uzodinma said :” We came here for routine oversight to benchmark what the agencies have done with the budget of 2013, and see how we could assist them in the implementation of the aviation road map.
We are here to call aviation agencies to order to move the industry forward .
We have observed that there is funding gap in the industry , and one way to address this is to prioritise on going projects to ensure that no project is abandoned .
We observed that the space allotted to the new international terminal in Lagos should have being bigger is size, but that is due largely to space constraint .”