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The Federal Government has unveiled transaction advisers for the six projects in the Aviation Roadmap in line with the Infrastructure Concession and Regulatory Commission (ICRC) guidelines and public procurement act.
This was made known by Hadi Sirika, the Minister of State Aviation, at the 4th Aviation Stakeholders Forum held on Thursday March 29th 2018 in Abuja where he also unveiled the logo for the 59th Airport Council International Africa (ACI-Africa) Conference and exhibition next month.
The six projects in the roadmap include the concession of the four major airports, establishment of Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) Centre and Aviation leasing company, development of Aerotropolis and cargo/ Argo allied terminals, establishment of national carrier.
For the concession Sirika, announced Infrata, Dentons, Rebel, WSP Parsons Brinkckerhoff, Proserve as the five Transaction Advisers for the handling of the concession of the Abuja, Lagos, Kano and Port Harcourt Airports.
Infrata is a United Kingdom based Infrastructure Transaction Support Consultancy which provides commercial, technical and traffic related advice on behalf of lenders, investors and sponsors.
The Company has acted as advisor on many high profile transactions in Africa, America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
Dentons is an international law firm based in London with experience in project advisory services across both developed and emerging markets. It is present in every continent in more than 144 locations across over 59 countries.
Rebel specializes in economics, feasibility, financing and transaction advisory for projects in all infrastructure sectors. It operates globally with headquarters in Rotterdam (NL).
WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff is a leading engineering professional services consulting firms with over 75 years’ experience in the aviation sector and based in more than 39 countries worldwide. The company has designed, developed, acted as financial consultants and managed airport development around the world.
Proserve is a project coordination, construction management expert and local legal expert. The firm maintains strategic alliances with highly reputable global and partners to offer services in areas of need.
Sirika said the consortium of five firms are vastly experienced and are experts in airport management, Public Private Partnership Legal Advice, Finance, Project and Construction Management and Environmental and Social services.
On the establishment of an MRO Centre and Aviation Leasing company, Sirika revealed that government approved a consortium of five firms, Arup UK, Catamaran Nigeria Limited, RDC Aviation Economics UK, Aubert Business Consulting UK and Olawoyin & Olawoyin.
The firms according to the minister are experienced in design and planning, especially in infrastructure development with bias for transport, international business management consultancy and a legal firm specialised on corporate, securities, maritime , foreign investments and litigation matters.
For the development of the Aerotropolis and cargo terminals, a consortium of three firms were chosen: the Infrastructure Bank Plc, PWO GIBB and Abdulai Taiwo & co each specialising in raising and management of funds, engineering and a full service commercial and IP Law firm.
Sirika also announced that for the national carrier, UK-based Airline Management Group, an airline group with keen strengths in start-up carriers as well as Aviation International and Tianerro FZE have been appointed.
According to Sirika, the Transaction Advisers will be liaising with the Project Delivery Team to ensure it all comes to fruition in record time. He further stated that all the Transaction Advisers except for the National Carrier were engaged in May 2017 and have a 9 month contract.
Under their terms of reference will be the preparation of Full Brief Case (FBC), support Ministry of transportation, aid in getting compliance certificate from ICRC, Federal Executive Council (FEC) approval.
However, Olayinka Abioye, general secretary, National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), told BusinessDay that till date, the government has not made wide consultations with stakeholders to agree on the type of turnaround to expect from the airport concessions.
“We are not against public private partnership. What we are complaining about is the attitude of government when such partnerships are put in place. They don’t consult adequately and even if they consult, they already have a mind-set of what to do.
“Two committees set up to monitor these concessions. The committees were supposed to have sat with the minister of aviation who was supposed to be the chairman of the committee to determine how and who becomes the nominated member of the transaction adviser. How the minister chose these consultancy groups, no one knows,” Abioye said.
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