Mixed Reactions Trail NCAA, NAMA, NIMET Merger Plans

Chinedu Eze

The recent re-awakening of the Oransaye’ report by the federal government and its planned implementation, has stirred the aviation industry, as the report recommended the scrapping and merging of Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) with the Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NIMET) and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA).

Many aviation industry stakeholders that expressed reservations about merging the agencies, pointed out that the regulator and service providers should not be put together because their services could be conflicting, remarking that it will be difficult for an agency to regulate itself.

The report suggested the merger of the agencies in order to give birth to a new body, known as the Federal Civil Aviation Authority (FCAA), while amending their respective enabling laws to reflect the merger.

Citing examples with what happens in other countries, especially the United States of America, many said this is possible and did not foresee any hitches, but some stakeholders are of the view that the aviation industry and even the public service in Nigeria havd not attained such maturity for officials to show altruistic commitment to realise the objective of reducing cost of administration of the agency, adding that it may create loopholes to abuse the system.

The Secretary General of the industry think-tank body, Aviation Round Table (ART), Mr. Olu Fidel Ohunayo, told THISDAY that such merger might work well in a more mature environment, like the US, where the structures are institutionalised and where the three arms of government are well delineated, but may find hitches working in Nigeria because of the aforementioned factors. 

“Yes, it might work well in the US where the industry is matured, where the structures are independent and working in consonance with democracy and governance. And you have an independent judiciary and legislature and you have an executive that knows its boundaries in that corporate structure of governance but not in Nigeria. As it were, I think it is better to allow NAMA to remain as it is than to merge it with the regulator. We might be having some issues there along the line. Again, in having NAMA as it is, you can see that the government is still investing in NAMA. They just approved N40 billion for them to upgrade their infrastructure.

“I think what NAMA needs is not merging them with the NCAA but to reduce the non-essential service staff that has been imposed on the agency. It has many directorates. There is a directorate of special agency, they have upgraded a department that is supposed to be under some departments into an independent department. They are the ones killing NAMA, not that NAMA cannot survive. NAMA can survive without government funds,” he said.

Ohunayo noted tha in some countries, Air Traffic Controllers are autonomous and they are doing very well, and recommended hat NAMA should be allowed to be on its own.

“We have very independent air traffic control organisations that are doing very, very well in their countries despite the fact that some are not even owned by the government. I am not saying that NAMA should be privatized, but I knew it should be commercialised. It should not be taken as a civil service organisation whereby everybody throws in their relations through political appointees. It should remain a technical organisation, generating revenue and keeping the airspace secured. That is my point of view of that organization, and that is the way I wish it should be,” he added.

Some industry observers were also of the view that the aviation if streamlined could more effectively discharge their responsibilities, however said because they are bloated with too many workers, some of whom are not skilled to contribute meaningfully to the agencies, so much money would be spent in running the organisations.  They recommended that NAMA and even NIMET should be commercialised to become fully profit oriented agencies.

The former Acting Director General of NCAA and member of Air Peace Board of Directors, Benedict Adeyileka, told THISDAY that NCAA being a regulatory agency cannot be merged with service providers like NAMA and NIMET because doing so will impugn on the regulatory role of the authority.

“NCAA cannot be merged with service providers. If they merge them it will not work. The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) recommends that civil aviation authority should be autonomous and should regulate service providers in the industry. NCAA cannot do this if it is also providing airspace management services and issuing weather reports to not only aviation and other sectors,” he said.

Adeyileka suggested that instead of merging service providers and NCAA, government should strip the agencies of unwanted employees who are not qualified and do not have required skills to work in such organisations. If they do this, the cost of managing the agencies will reduce drastically, Adeyileka said.

“The agencies have bloated workforce who were pushed into the system on nepotism. I know those when I was at NCAA who were brought in as fresh graduates and placed on Level 9 and they went to their people and complained and they pushed them to Level 12. Meanwhile, there were those who came before them but were placed on Level 9 and they have been trained and did very well. These were already contributing in the system and those who knew nothing were placed above them. Those ones who were trained left NCAA. Some travelled overseas and some went to work with airlines. These are the people that should be weeded out so reduce the cost of running the agencies,” he said.

However, the Managing Director and CEO of Aero Contractors, Captain Ado Sanusi is of the view that if well managed NAMA and NIMET could be merged and effectively managed.

“I believe that NAMA and NIMET can come under one umbrella. NIMET should be under the Ministry of Environment because aviation uses a very minimal part of the metrological report that is needed in the country. We just need en-route weather and destination weather. We don’t need the amount of rainfall, drought, desertification, deforestation, erosion and all that, we don’t need those ones,” he said.

On the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Sanusi said the agency should be privatised for more effective management of the airports.