Commissioner of Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), Felix Abali, has appealed to the Federal Government to exempt its technical personnel from the current embargo placed on foreign training since 2015.
Abali said yesterday at bureau’s headquarters in Lagos during the visit of the House Ad-Hoc Committee on Non-Oil Revenue and Remittances that accident investigation was a specialised area that required special training that were obtainable mostly overseas, saying the.
The Federal Government had in earlier suspended foreign training and international travels by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
The government had said that embargo on training and international travels was one of the cost-saving measures introduced following recent developments in the international oil market, which had affected the revenue stream of government.
Since the directive, which was announced by the head of service, Danladi Kifasi in February 2016, technical personnel in the nation’s aviation industry had not been able to go on foreign training to boost their technical knowledge.
Abali advocated for the increase of the 3 percent of the ticket sales charge to 10 percent, stressing that paucity of funds had prevented the agency from carrying out its duties as a responsible accident investigator.
He said AIB as parts of its succession plan required special funding to operate, and hoped that the committee would use its good office to push for the upward review of the ticket sales charge for the agency.
He said, “For emergency and high profile accidents, AIB requires an emergency or special account to meet this need. Malaysia MH 370 and TWA 800 accidents, among others are apt examples. Stakeholders and public awareness campaign requires adequate funding. We request for support in this area.
“Accident investigation bodies are not expected to charge for their services and so the opportunity to generate independent revenue is almost nil. Based on Annex 13 of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, ICAO, Manual, there should be special fund dedicated to cater for any major accidents.
“It has been very difficult to provide and keep this fund since every unspent money goes back to the Federal Treasury by December 31 of every financial year.”
He declared that AIB needed to urgently meet the need for qualified personnel to take-over from the crop of ageing technical personnel who he said were currently on contract, stressing that huge fund was required for manpower development, majority of which is done overseas.
He mentioned the upgrade of flight safety laboratory and flight data monitoring device, equipping of wreckage hangar and establishment of two regional offices in Kano and Enugu as some of the ongoing projects of AIB.
