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The Federal Government has said it will not discontinue its plans to concession all the airports in the country, saying that the government lacks financial resources to invest in airport development.
This is as aviation unions said they would continue to kick against the select plans of the Federal Government to concession some of the airports without following the due course.
Also, Dr. Wale Babalakin, the Chairman, Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL), operators of the Murtala Muhammed Airport Two (MMA2), Lagos said that the failure of the Federal Government to keep to signed agreements stunted the infrastructure growth in the sector.
Speaking on Thursday at a webinar organised by Aviation Round Table (ART) with the theme: ‘Nigerian Airport Concession: How Far, So Far,” Sen. Hadi Sirika, the Minister of Aviation said that the government was faced with dwindling revenues to maintain the existing airports.
He insisted that for the country to have state-of-the-art facilities that can compete favourably with their counterparts elsewhere, it was pertinent for the airports to be concessioned to interested investors.
Sirika, at a stakeholders’ forum in Lagos in late 2015 had unveiled the vision of President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government to transform the aviation sector.
To achieve the transformation agenda of President Buhari, Sirika explained that the country’s airports would be concessioned, while Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano airports would serve as the pilot phase of the concession scheme, while the other 18 aerodromes would happen in the second phase of the exercise.
According to him, the concession was a deliberate policy towards bridging infrastructural deficit in the nation’s airports.
But, his plan to concession the airports was met with resistance from some stakeholders especially the aviation unions who alleged that the entire process lacked transparency.
Most also queried what aspect of the airport that would be concessioned by the government, arguing that most parts of the airports had been in one concession or the other.
