 has threatened to shut down domestic airlines over multibillion naira debt it said the airlines owe.){kind=link}
The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has threatened to shut down domestic airlines over multibillion naira debt it said the airlines owe.
The Director General of MCAA, Capt. Musa Nuhu said this on Tuesday in Abuja at a meeting with representatives of the local carriers.
Nuhu said the airlines owed the government N19 billion and 7.6 million dollars, and had refused to pay in spite of receiving the money from customers adding that the airlines had instead launched a “campaign of calumny and falsehoods” against the authority.
According to him, the airlines must enter a Memorandum of Understamsimg (MoU) on how they will pay their debts in the next 30 days from Aug. 30 or their license will be suspended at the expiration of the deadline.
“This situation is crippling finances and pitching the authority against the Federal Government as a government-owned revenue-generating agency, following the dire financial position of the Federal Government,” he said.
This followed the complaints to the Ministry of Finance by the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), an umbrella body for airlines operating in Nigeria, accusing NCAA of imposing multiple charges on them.
Nuhu said the accusations by the airlines were “unfair, unfounded and smacked of blackmail.”
He said thst all airlines were indebted to the NCAA, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA).
According to him, the NCAA charges the airlines cost recovery charges as the bulk of its revenue comes from statutory charges on air tickets saying that while customers pay the money, airlines continue to fail to remit them.
He said the AON accusations were untrue as a comparison of charges between Nigeria and Ghana shows that Ghana charges over 100 per cent higher in most of the charges.
NCAA boss said the authority would also review its charges higher as the it had not reviewed charges in about 13 years in spite of rising cost of service provision.
He explained that the aviation agencies are just as challenged as the airlines because they also rely on forex to train and procure critical equipment the airline needs to operate safely.
He said NAMA is also being owed over N5 billion and FAAN is also being owed over N19 billion by the same airlines.