The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) saved at least N180 million from the just concluded American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) audit, which Nigeria retained in February.
The sum was saved by the agency due to the shunning of engagement of external consultants unlike in the past.
The government had used in-house personnel from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to carry out the exercise, which the country retained for the third time in recent time.
Sen. Hadi Sirika, the Minister of State for Aviation at the annex office of the regulatory agency at the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), Lagos said that the retention of the status indicated that NCAA had improved the safety and security status of the industry in the country.
Sen. Hadi Sirika, Minister of State for Aviation ha revealed earlier in the week that several external consultants approached him for the audit, but said that the government declined to engage them due to paucity of funds.
Sirika was however silent on the amount of money requested for by the external consultants that contacted the government to prosecute the exercise.
He also said that unlike in the past where NCAA borrowed money from sister agencies to prosecute the exercise, the agency successfully carried out the exercise without recourse to borrowing from any agency.
He said: “I thank the Director-General of NCAA and his team for making us proud with the retention of the Category One Status. This is very significant, not only because there was no financial assistance from sister agencies or engagement of external personnel, but because all were done in-house.
“Some external personnel approached me and gave us bills, which we felt were high and I told them we had no funds to prosecute the project. So, we decided to do it in-house. This simply shows that we have personnel that are of international standards in-house.”
A source in the Ministry of Transport, Aviation Unit told our correspondent yesterday that the government was able to save half a million dollars (about N180m) by using the in-house officials of the authority.
It would be recalled that New Narrative Online had exclusively reported recently Nigeria retained the FAA Category One Status, barely three months after FAA team visited Nigeria for the audit of the safety status of the country’s civil aviation industry.
Fact to this had emerged when a ministry source told our correspondent that the FAA Administrator, Mr. Dan Elwell had conveyed the message to Capt. Muhtar Usman in an email address in early February.
Mr. Sam Adurogboye, the General Manager, Public Affairs, NCAA also confirmed the development with our correspondent on phone.
The source said that the certification to the new status would be issued the country before the end of this month.
This status will enable Nigerian registered carriers to continue to fly directly to United States of America, among other benefits.
Nigeria it was gathered retained the status after NCAA, and other major agencies in the sector closed all the identified “open items” when the FAA team visited in August, 2017.
Earlier in his speech, Usman said that Nigeria was able to retain the status with the help of in-house personnel and reiterated the readiness of the regulatory agency to maintain the tempo.
He recalled that in 2010, Nigeria through NCAA attained the Category One Status, sustained it in 2014 while the country retained it in 2017.
He said: “This one is special because in the past, we used the in-house personnel unlike in the past where we used external assistance. We also didn’t borrow from any sister organisation for the very first time.”
Usman, however read out a letter from the FAA confirming the retention of the category. The highlight of the event was the presentation of the certificate to Sirika by Usman.
