Crisis Looms In NAMA Over Multilateration Contract

Crisis is brewing in the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency NAMA over the engagement of a private organisation to collect fees from helicopter operators in the Niger Delta area

The Federal Government through the Ministry of Aviation said it was part of effort to raise revenue for the agency through the collection of landing fees from helicopters operating in Nigerian airspace.

Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika inaugurated the latest batch of trained Helicopter Monitoring Officers at the International Wing of the Port Harcourt International Airport in the Rivers State capital recently

Though represented by the Director of Human Resources at the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Norris Anozie, he reiterated the resolve of the Federal Government to improve revenue collection of helicopter landing charges.

The project awarded to a consultant to the federal government, Naebi Dynamic Concepts Limited will be collecting landing and take-off charges from helicopters operating in all platforms across the country.

The implementation committee for Rivers State was inaugurated six months ago at the International Wing of the Port Harcourt Airport by the Chief Executive Officer of Naebi Dynamic, Chike Stanley.

Stanley said he was responding to the mandate given to his firm by the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, when he inaugurated the consortium in Port Harcourt to collect landing and take-off charges from helicopters operating within the country’s airspace.

While some people close to the Ministry lauded the new innovations brought in by the minister in the sector some of the workers in NAMA described the action as counter productive, duplication of duty and fraudulent.

Some anonymous workers in the agency told our correspondent that the management of NAMA had spent much on mutilateration, a system being introduced to capture low flying aircraft especially helicopters in the Niger Delta region.

At meet the media forum late last year, the acting managing director of the agency Mr Lawrence Pwajok said the agency has spent huge amount of money to capture all low flying aircraft in the country’s airspace through mutilateration.

Some stakeholders have argued that the government ought to have empowered the commercial department of NAMA with every necessary tools needed to do the job than bringing in a third party to handle revenue generation for the agency.

It was gathered that Multilateration project dates back to 2013 when a contract was awarded for the assessment of the traffic volume, complexity and architecture of the airspace in the Niger Delta, in view of the critical role of oil exploration in Nigeria and the crucial role of helicopter operations in support of oil exploration activities.

The volume of helicopter operations in the Niger Delta had increased significantly within a very limited airspace bloc, given that helicopter operations were within very low altitude.

The increased volume of flight operations, as well as airspace complexity, necessitated the quest for the provision of a dedicated communication, navigation and surveillance system for the safe, effective and efficient air traffic management of low- level helicopter operations in the Niger

A stakeholder, Mr Olumide Ohunayo, said NAMA has invested huge amounts of money on training, acquiring equipment, improve security and coverage of the airspace and to improve on revenue generation within the Nigerian airspace

Ohunayo condemned the contracting of the project to a private company when NAMA has the capacity to do it saying that the ministry ought to have given NAMA a trial for two or three years and correct their errors

He said it does not augur well to have give a consultant such range of time especially when the present administration was winding up adding that the industry will be thrown into litigation as they cannot be told to step down as a result of the long range of time signed by the government with them

Ohunayo called for a revisit of the contract before the minister exits office by reducing the number of years and amount adding that cost of operations will increase which will also lead to increase in costs of services and reduce the number of flying aircraft

He queried where the funds will be going to as NAMA was not carried along during the engagement of the firm adding that the commercial department of NAMA was needed to participate in the discussion but never involved.

The General Manager, public affairs Mr Khalid Emeke, could not be reach for comment as his phone rang without responding