Three years after leaving office, former Director General of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) Dr. Harold Demuren yesterday identified political interference as the major obstacle to enforcement of safety regulations.
He faulted the bilateral air services agreement (BASA) Nigeria signed with Qatar, describing it as good politics for the country, but bad economics that has capacity to put pressure on foreign exchange.
Demuren spoke yesterday at a breakfast meeting organised by the Aviation Safety Roundtable Initiative in Lagos.
Demuren noted that the Federal Government must put into consideration, good corporate governance that would ensure attraction of technical partners, skilled workers and the required funding for the plan to set up a national carrier to materialise.
He said though nothing was wrong with the nation’s aviation policies, strict enforcement of safety regulations requires a director general of strong character.
Such a person, the former director general added, must be honest, transparent and bold.
According to him, no matter the decisions one takes, people in government would always hold the NCAA responsible whenever an accident occurs.
Demuren said signing off bilateral air services agreement without any reciprocity only amounts to good politics and bad economics because Nigeria would not gain from such a deal.
Demuren said Qatar has an airline, which runs seven frequencies into Nigeria with no Nigerian airlines flying into Doha.
He stressed that since no Nigerian carrier was designated to fly into Doha, it was clear that the air pact was lopsided.
He lamented that to make matters worse, those countries Nigeria have BASA’s with no longer pay royalties for flying into the country.
Demuren stated that Nigerian airlines cannot compete with Qatar Airways in terms of equipment, personnel, maintenance and other areas.
His words: “I am not saying that we should not sign BASA .What I am saying is that if we must sign BASA, we must know the content of the BASA we are signing.”
He said in the past, international airlines that operated into the country based on the BASA paid royalties and that was how the government got some money in return for its investment.
Demuren lamented that now, the foreign airlines no longer pay royalties.
This, he stated, had denied the Federal Government good returns for its money. “Government must get something back as return for its investments,” he said.
According to him, it was because of the lack of what Nigeria could gain from BASA agreement that the NCAA had to introduce the five per cent Ticket Sales Charge (TSC).
He said he would prefer if that charge is increased to ten percent so that the additional five percent could go into government coffers.
Demuren regretted that even the royalties and taxes that were levied on the foreign airlines because of the inability of the country to favourably compete in the BASA deal were also removed due to political reasons which he decried was killing the country and the aviation industry.
The former director general said it was the accumulation of the TSC, royalties and charges that constitute the BASA funds that was domiciled in NCAA.
He said many years ago, foreign airlines used to pay $180 to Nigerian Airways per passenger for extra frequencies into the country.
He said: “It is good politics to sign BASA agreement, but most of the times, it is bad politics because Nigeria is not really fit to compete with the other countries.
“Again, when Nigerian Airways was still operational, we could say that we did compete a little. But right now that we cannot compete effectively, the government still went ahead to cancel the royalties and taxes. So, we don’t even get anything from BASA fund.”
Former Director of Operations, Nigerian Airways Captain Prekemi Porbeni added that getting foreign airlines to come into Nigeria without any reciprocity was unacceptable.
He said: “The local airline should be implored to take part in it. We did it before. Even we can use the equipment of the foreign airline to do the same flight when it is using frequency; it is an indirect co-share.”
On his part, the former Managing Director of Nigeria Airways, Mr. Andrew Okunuga, advised Nigeria not to spend so much energy on frequency allocation, but on what would favour Nigeria.
He stated that BASA should not be discussed in isolation, adding that the agreement include joint venture, code share and others.
Okunuga added that the Federal Government should encourage Nigerian domestic airlines to make them international players in the aviation market.
The former Nigerian Airways’ managing director said Arik Air and Medview Airlines should have been present when the latest BASA was signed between Qatar and the Federal Ministry of Aviation.
On how to make domestic airlines survive, he noted that “one man business mentality” was not helping the operators.
He called on them to come together for grow.
