Workers of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) under the auspices of the Air Transport Service Senior Staff Association and the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) have rejected plan by the Federal Government to concession four major airports in the country located in Abuja, Lagos, Kano and Port Harcourt.
This was disclosed at the weekend by Olayinka Abioye, assistant general secretary of NUATE, who accused government of not putting the interest of the workers into consideration, and threatened that the workers would resist the plan to concession the airports, recalling that when the defunct Nigeria Airways was liquidated, workers were left to die without their pay off or their pensions that rose to over N72 billion.
The Federal Government said it could no longer fund the development of airport facilities due to its lean resources, so it was inviting the private sector to invest in the growth of the facilities through Public Private Partnership (PPP), and had in its initial plan the concession of the first major airports in the country.
Many industry experts say that the only solution to access of fund for the development of airport facilities is the participation of the private sector.
Reacting to this plan, Abioye said: “What we need to recognise first of all is the fact that government, particularly in the last 10 years, has been shifting its core responsibilities and this may be due to globalisation and neo-liberalism and it wanted to engage in what is called Public, Private Partnership. There is nothing wrong with that if it is done with honesty and it is also purpose driven. Unfortunately, we do not believe, particularly with what we are seeing that Nigeria is ripe for concession and privatisation of public utilities.”
Abioye noted that the major reason why workers were opposed to the plan besides lack of consideration for the interest of the workers was that all efforts in the past to concession airport facilities failed due to lack of objectivity or transparency, and the few that could be described as successful were skewed in favour of the investors and against the interest of government, which represented the public interest.
But reacting to the incident, Mike Chikek, industry analyst and author of “Nigerian Aviation Fact Book, said it had become impossible for government to continue to fund airport development, noting that airport facilities would become obsolete and possibly jeopardise safety if the private sector was not allowed to rescue the sector.
“I am troubled with the state of our airports. Our airports, which are the first point of call to foreigners into Nigeria, have become a national embarrassment. Nigerians are not immune to this national show of shame as they are received on arrival with a certain ambiance that leaves nothing to be desired. This has been the situation in the last three decades of our national existence,” Chikeka said.
He said a study conducted by “The Guide to Sleeping in Airports” named three of Nigeria’s international airports as the worst in Africa. The airports are Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos (10th worst), Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja (7th worst), and Port Harcourt International Airport, Port Harcourt (6th worst).
“We have also established a fact that government has continued to struggle with ensuring the operational viability of these airports rather than both operational and profitability of same. In the end, it is almost unattainable for government to run a profitable airport. Sadly, too, government funding continues to shrink year after year and we cannot wait for a complete collapse of our system before something is done.”
