Six months on, concession of 4 airports yet to have framework, business case
More than six months after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the concession of Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt Airports, indications have emerged showing that a business case upon which the concessioning framework will stand is yet to be developed and ratified by the National Council on Privatisation (NCP).
The Vice-President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo had on September 10, 2017, disclosed at the quarterly programme on the ease of doing business at the Old Banquet Hall, Presidential Villa, Abuja that the concession process will begin as soon as possible.
But in an interview over the weekend, the Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mr. Saleh Dunoma revealed that “There are a lot of work going on and a need to develop a business case”.
Explaining more on the delay, FAAN boss noted that “We have consultants that are working. What they need to do is to look at the current situation; what do we have? How do we do it? There is a lot of documentation going on at the moment and the consultants are working. When they finish the development of business case and then come up with the entire documentation that is needed, then we can now present it to investors,” Dunoma averred.
On his views about the evaluation of Africa and Nigerian airports, he said “The people that rate the airports are the professional bodies, either the Civil Aviation Authority of the country, the Airports Council International experts or the International Civil Aviation Organisation”.
According to him, “These are the people that have the tools to rate the airports. I have seen other people rating airports but I don’t consider that kind of rating professional because you go there, look at an airport and make comments and you say you are rating airports”.
He said “There are standard tools through which the ICAO, ACI and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) rate the airports. NCAA visits the airports every day and come up with ratings. These agencies are specialized”.
“They have experts in safety, fire, rescue, security, facilitation and aerodrome standards. They will go to the airport and look at it. These experts look at specific things and come back with ratings. After these, they will tell you if it is below standard and what needs to be improved upon.
“Even the implementation of the plans is done under safety standards. For example, the Airport Excellence and Safety that we did in Abuja and Lagos; experts came from various countries and they looked at the airports.
