A team of safety and security auditors from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) have commenced work geared at preparing four of Nigeria’s international airports sited in Enugu, Port Harcourt, Kaduna, and Kano ready for international certifications, says Managing Director/CEO of FAAN, Mr. Saleh Dunoma.
Dunoma, who addressed aviation reporters in Lagos yesterday, also announced that all ongoing remodeling work at the Lagos and Abuja airports would be completed by June 2018.
“We had to change the completion dates (initially fixed for 2016) because of issues pertaining to dollar exchange rate with contractors because when the projects were awarded the dollar exchanged for N160 but as at today it goes for over N300 per $1. The approval process for the variations of the contract ended up being sop lengthy, but Port Harcourt Airport is about 80 per cent completed, while Abuja and Lagos are almost done. By the middle of this year we should complete these projects,” he added.
Dunoma said the said safety and security processes, infrastructure and conditions at the Enugu, Port Harcourt, Kano, and Kaduna international airports were being evaluated by the auditors from NCAA and FAAN with the view to getting them align with international standards prior to their certification.
Dunoma said the certification of the four airports became necessary following the successful certification of the Lagos and Abuja airports by the NCAA and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). None of Niegria’s airports operated with any international certification until the Lagos and Abuja airports were certified in 2017. Dunoma said the plan was to get all airports in the country certified in the years ahead.
He also said plans have reached advanced stage to procure and install mobile Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras at the airside of all airports in the country.
Dunoma said that the mobile CCTV cameras would cover a distance of seven kilometers and could sight even long distances at night.
According to him, with the procurement of the mobile cameras and improvement on perimeter fencing patrol, the era of incursions into the airside of airports by unwanted persons (like the recent invasion of the Akure airport runway by heard of cows) would be eliminated.
Dunoma also debunked allegations that runways managed by the agency were faulty and could have been responsible for the accident involving a Dana Air flight recently at the Port Harcourt Airport.
“One of the features of runways design is to ensure effective drainage on the sides so that water does not collect at the centres and that’s how our runways are,” he said.
“So we don’t have issues with flooding on our runways because our runways are designed in such a way that water is properly drained,” he added.
On the indebtedness of airlines and other concessionaires in the sector, Dunoma said FAAN was reconciling the debts with its clients at regional level and would continue to do this until the debts are reduced to the barest minimum, but observed that aviation industry worldwide allows credit.
Operations of Caverton and Bristow Helicopters were this morning Thursday, February 1, grounded by Members of the National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers, NAAPE in protest against the disparity in salaries and other allowances paid indigenous pilots compared to expatriates by the aviation company.
Passengers who are mainly offshore workers were stranded at the Bristow Helipad at the Airforce Base Port Harcourt as a result of the strike.
Some of the Offshore workers who had reported at the Bristow Helicopters helipad at the Airforce Base had all gone back to their hotels pending when the industrial crisis is resolved.
NAAPE said it had been in dispute with the management of the Bristow Group over pay disparity and poor conditions of service for Nigerian pilots and engineers compared to their expatriate counterparts, who work for the same group.
Our investigations indicate that operations of Caverton Helicopters in Lagos, Warri and Port Harcourt may also be grounded due to the protest by the Nigerian Pilots and Engineers
Protests by Nigerian Pilots over salary discrimination have been a perennial issue in the aviation firm, but the management of Caverton Helicopters have refused to correct the pay disparity.
It was difficult getting the management of Bristow Caverton helicopters to speak on the strike as at the time of filing the report.
In 2016, National President of NAAPE, Isaac Balami, and the state Chairman of the Trade Union Congress, Chika Onuegbu, led the demonstrators, who said that for the past 10 years, Nigerians working as pilots and engineers with Bristow had endured untold suffering due to unfair and mindless policies of its management.
Balami had then said, “They treat the pilots and engineers like they are in a slave camp. You will see a co-pilot who just has 200-hour experience from the United Kingdom, South Africa and Canada earning far more than their Nigerian counterparts who have been working for years. A job that a Nigerian can do, they sack him and give it to a foreigner and pay him more.”
THERE IS JOY IN MY HEART SEEING FORMER CULTISTS, MILITANTS, PROSTITUTES RECEIVES WATER BAPTISM - OPM G.O Delares.
The General Overseer of OPM, Apostle Chibuzor Gift Chinyere, over the weekend expressed joy, as over 200 repentants cultists, militants, and prostitutes who embraces Christ through the OPM empowerment and intervention programs received water baptism after undergoing baptismal classes.
Speaking to the press, shortly after the new converts fully comply with the biblical injunctions, the deliverance Apostle said, though the financial involvement in the up keep and maintenance of the newly converts are quite enormous, especially from point of view of providing free feeding, free accommodations, free skill acquisition, setting up businesses and other human capacity intervention scheme to the new brothers and sisters but he can not in anyway compare the cost to the salvation of the lost souls to God in heaven.
This is what God is expecting from us, he emphasized.
Remember all this was done using the tithe and offerings that come into OPM church.
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