Senate on Monday asked Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) to suspend a new price regime for all private airlines operating in the country.
Daily Champion recalls that In a circular dated November 18, 2013, and signed by the agency’s director of operations, Mr J.C. Onyegiri, on behalf of the managing director, all foreign registered aircraft engaging in non-scheduled operations were directed to pay the sum of $3,000 fees for every departure except round trips without changes in passenger manifest or return ferry.
But during an interactive session among the stakeholders in Abuja, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Aviation, Senator Hope Uzodinma directed the Managing Director of NAMA, Engineer Mazi Nnamdi Udoh to stop the new charges until the end of the retreat among the stakeholders in the aviation sector.
Hw said consultation was made not made before the charges were put, it is very necessary to hold stakeholders meeting, during the meeting there will be proper consultation on the new charges. I think my view is that a new date should be chosen when all stakeholders will meet and it should be done in a manner that there will be no bad blood.
Speaking earlier, Spokesperson of the private airlines operators on non schedule flights in Nigeria, Alhaji Bala Ibn Na’allah, had described the new levies introduced by NAMA as discriminatory because the arrangement was not applicable to airline operators on scheduled flights.
Ibn Na’allah agreed that the Civil Aviation Act 2006 section 30 (2) gives power to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority to impose levies but argued that such levies should not be imposed without adequate consultations with relevant stakeholders.
He said, “We want to be led by the rule of law. NCAA did not consult us before imposing levies on us. We are urging the senators to impress upon the NCAA to always carry us along through consultations because section 70 (1) C of the act did not allow them to do whatever will be detrimental to the nation.
In his response,Director General, NAMA, Mazi Nnamdi Udoh, noted that airlines operators were very crucial to the nation even as he corrected the assumption that his agency forced the operators to pay in dollars.
Udoh said, “They are also at liberty to pay in naira. Payment in dollars is at their liberty. The provisions of section 30 were being used in the past to collect levies. The charges would make them to ensure sanity.
“Before the new one-stop-shop payment, We were charging navigation, landing, parking and terminal navigation levies but services being offered in Nigeria must also conform to international best practices.
“They don’t pay five percent charges out of the revenues they make. Safety is not cheap, the new levies are desirable because we have to maintain standards at all times.