Foreign Airlines berate FG over trapped funds

By Chukwuemeke Iwelunmo

The Association of Foreign Airlines Representatives of Nigeria (AFARN) has berated the decision not to allow foreign airlines to repatriate all their funds from the country, describing it as a gross violation of the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA).

Speaking to journalists in his office at NAHCO to announce this year’s safety summit of the Association, AFARN president, Mr Kingsley Nwokoma urged government to know that the country was into Bilateral Air Services with other countries and such must be honoured

“We should know that we have BASA with these airlines. We are even lucky that foreign airlines are still coming to this country because smaller countries are respecting agreements; there is no reason why you should not respect agreements. If Air Peace goes to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), South Africa, people buy tickets on Air Peace. Has Air Peace complained that they do not get paid or get their money?

“The government has decided to pay them some money but they forgot that every second, ticket are sold. That means that the debts are still growing. What do you want the airlines to do? The airlines are still here. Emirates said that they were leaving at a point this year. A lot of airlines have cut frequencies. I don’t know whether the government is waiting for the airlines to down tools”.

READ ALSO: Strike: Gbajabiamila moves to consolidate ASUU/FG

On the recent facilities installations by the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) for the upgrade of navigational facilities across the country, Nwokoma commended the agency stressing that many of the security and surveillance equipment would help greatly to detect the activities of oil thieves and people with nefarious activities.

He particularly praised the upgrade would also occur to nine Monopulse Secondary Surveillance Radars (RSM 970M) to cover the following stations – Lagos, Kano, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Ilorin, Maiduguri, Talata-Mafara, Numan, and Obubra configured to be interconnected through a VSAT network and one that intends to improve the country airspace surveillance.

The agency is at the completion stage of its pet project, the Wide Area Multi-lateration (WAM) system, which is a surveillance system to cover Nigeria’s delta region and whose cost was put at $12.9 million.

“We hear situations where helicopters operate and you can’t identify them with oil theft going on. All these installations are going to improve safety not only in the aviation industry but safety of human lives. A drone is a smaller thing. If those drones land in the forest, the installations will capture their movement”, Nwokoma explained.