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Experts in the aviation sector have raised concerns that one of the risks investors are concerned about in the recent plan to concession the four international airports is regulatory.
These concerns are coming at a time the Federal Government has said there will be no looking back in its plans to concession the international airports in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja and Kano.
Speaking at an aviation conference on privatisation and concession at the weekend, Pat Utomi, professor, political economy and a management expert, said one of the biggest threats in the business environment in Nigeria was regulatory risk, saying government and airline operators need to understand the importance of boundary setting and following rules.
“The business environment in Nigeria is full of uncertainties and people have the tendency of calculating the risks involved before making business decisions,” Utomi said.
He stressed on the need to create a context in which regulators could protect the interest of consumers and stakeholders in order create a more enabling environment that yield consistent human progress, and noted that regulators and operators need to grow the aviation sector by ensuring that property rights were respected.
Chris Aligbe, an expert and CEO of Belujane Concept, said for concession to be successful in Nigeria, it must follow strict legal and legislative framework to avoid the kind of controversy being witnessed in the case of Bi-Courtney.
“Before you concession, there must be legal framework and it must go through the National Assembly and have fundamental law that would guide the concessioning, Aligbe said.
“If we take the flagship in concession, which is Bi-Courtney, it is sitting on a void legislative framework. Nigeria has not established frameworks for concessioning that is why the National Assembly becomes critical on this issue to establish the frameworks so that all the concessioning will sit on this framework.
“The Act establishing Nigeria Airways is still there, the first thing for you to have done is to repel the Act because they are brining a new arm; that is the work of the legislature,” he said.
