FG should forget plans to concession any airport between now and 2019—NAUTE
The leadership of the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) has made it clear before the Federal Government that its plan to hurriedly concession the four major airports in the country might not be feasible until 2019, saying the plan by the government to set up another national carrier would not work until it settled the N78 billion debt owed workers of the defunct Nigerian Airways.
Explaining issues in Lagos on Tuesday, General Secretary of the group, Olayinka Abioye, said all thorny issues surrounding the concession must be addressed before the exercise and they cannot be resolved as soon as end of 2018.
Business Hilights recalls that government recently appointed transaction advisers to midwife the concession of the Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt airports.
But while faulting the move, NAUTE scribe said the appointment of the transaction advisers, were not carried along before the announcement was made.
According to him, “What happened is that the Minister of State for Aviation, Sen. Hadi Sirika, unilaterally made the appointment without recourse to the committee he set up for the same purpose, which had some of our members.
“The committee is yet to submit its report; so, we were surprised when the announcement was made.
NAUTE averred that the concession of the airports would lead to job losses for thousands of their members, hence the stiff opposition from the unions.
The group added more that “Anytime there is a concession, people are bound to lose their jobs. What the unions are saying is that there should be dialogue between us and the government on how to protect the interest of these workers”.
“We believe that these issues must be addressed before the concession; and from our projections, this could take even up to two years. So, that should be sometime in 2019,’’ he said.
