The House of Representatives Committee on Aviation has said that with the progress of on-going work at the Enugu airport runway, the airport will likely re-open for operations by March 2020.
This is also as the committee refuted reports on land disputes posing challenge to the completion of the runway.
Speaking during the weekend to journalists, Nnolim Nnaji, chairman of the Committee, said the government is doing a lot to ensure the airport is re-opened as soon as possible.
“I can tell you that the land dispute cannot be a problem because the custodian of land is the government and the governor has said it many times that whatever land is needed to get the Enugu airport runway back, he will provide. Work is on-going.
“The minister never said the delivery date is April next year. When Hadi Sirika, minister of aviation came for budget defence, he said if the fund is available, the runway will be complete before Christmas but because the funds didn’t come out as agreed, the minister now said the runway will be ready before the Easter season,” Nnaji said.
He noted that the Sirika did not specify the month, but he believes that Enugu airport runway will be ready March, 2020.
The chairman of the committee disclosed that the issue of concessions and national carrier for the committee has just been a situation of hear-say, as the committee was yet to get any formal document on the projects.
“The issue of concessions have been hear-say because officially we have not seen any document on concession. We just hear it like other people that there will be concessions. So, until we get the documents and study it at the committee level and the national assembly, then we can talk about concession.
“The same situation applies to national carrier. We do not act on hear-say. We act based on documents available to us and that is why we cannot really comment on it,” he disclosed.
On construction of Abuja second runway, Nnaji also said no document has been made available to the committee on the second runway but stressed that there is a need for a second runway.
“On the issue of second runway, we have it in the budget and there are some funds for it in the budget but I’m also aware that that particular amount may not be able to execute the project fully,” he said.
In a bid to address the paucity of fund and help upgrade airport infrastructures, the committee chairman said the committee has recommended that a 10-year development plan be put in place where a consolidated account will be created for remittance of the 25percent internally generated revenues of aviation agencies be kept for aviation infrastructures.
The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, (FAAN) and other agencies remit 25 percent IGR to federal government and we are asking that instead of remitting the 25 percent to federal government, they can create a consolidated account where this 25percent will be remitted into and form a committee and from that 25 percent, they do a 10-year developmental plan, where they can list projects that they can do for 10 years.
“One of the problems we are having is that when a particular MD comes in, he will want to do a project and by the time he leaves and another MD comes in, the person will want to do another project. But if we have a 10-year developmental plan, it will continue. That is why we are saying that we should create a 10-year plan for aviation infrastructures,” Nnaji added.
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