AIB explains reasons for getting 5% PSC from FAAN

Commissioner of Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), Akin Olateru, insists that it is in the purview of Hadi Sirika, minister of state for aviation, to approve 5 percent of the revenue from Passengers Service Charge (PSC) to the agency from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).
This is as a combined team of officials from Singapore led by Michael Toft and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) led by Caj Frostel arrived in Nigeria over the weekend to assist AIB in the technical evaluation of its Flight Safety Laboratory and capacity development.
Speaking with journalists at the bureau’s headquarters at the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), Lagos, at the weekend, Olateru bemoaned the criticism that trailed the approval of 5 percent of the PSC to the agency by the ministry from a section of the industry, saying several AIB projects were stalled because of paucity of funds.
The AIB only gets a meagre 3 percent of the revenue from the 5 percent Ticket Sales Charge (TSC) and the Cargo Sales Charge (CSC) collected on behalf of the parastalas by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), while other agencies get more, he said.
The NCAA in accordance with the Civil Aviation Act 2006 gets 58 percent, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) earns 23 percent, Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) gets 7 percent, while the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) earns 9 percent of the total sum, he disclosed.
He explained further that of the agencies in the sector, only FAAN earned the PSC 100 percent, adding that the same agency still collected charges for adverts, parking and landing of aircraft, land and tolls on vehicles coming in and exiting the airports across the country.
He lamented that paucity of funds had stalled the release of the over 35 accident investigation reports, due to non-training of accident investigators since 2013, stressing that the agency needed to develop human capacities in order to compete with others.
He said: “We all share the TSC and FAAN doesn’t share its PSC with anybody and the government in its wisdom says ‘FAAN, please give AIB 5 percent.’ I don’t think that is too much. It is within the power of the minister to do that.
“But, one thing that is critical to us is that we have to work on in our budget on the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) side is the issue of accident investigation and training. These are critical. We need to build our capacities in accident investigation; there are certain things we need to improve upon, there are processes that we need to review, there is public sensitisation that we need to do.”
It would be recalled that Olateru had on June 5, 2017 requested from the ministry 10 percent of the PSC collected by FAAN, citing inadequate funds in the bureau to carry out most of its projects as some of the challenges facing it.

The ministry eventually approved 5 percent of PSC for the bureau.
Meanwhile, a team from Singapore yesterday arrived Nigeria for the training of technical personnel of AIB on the usage of the Safety Laboratory Equipment situated in Abuja and technical evaluation of the laboratory prior to its update.
The team is expected to commence work today (Monday) on the equipment.
Olateru said Nigeria decided to call on Singapore for the training of its personnel on the equipment as the Asian country had the same equipment as Nigeria, and described the laboratory equipment as unique, stressing that only Nigeria had the state-of-the-art facility among the West African states.
Also, the head of Accident Investigation for Banjul Accord Group (BAGAIA) from ICAO also arrived in the country at the weekend from Canada for the same purpose.
Olateru explained that ICAO wanted the entire West African countries to benefit from the laboratory, assuring that with the full usage of the equipment, Nigeria would be a force to be reckoned with in accident investigation.

 
IFEOMA OKEKE