The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) has put in place a mechanism to look into the lingering issue of harmonizing the salaries and allowances of staff under its payroll with those of their colleagues in other agencies in the aviation sector.
Fola Akinkuotu, managing director, NAMA who revealed this at the agency’s headquarters annex in Lagos said although the issue of harmonization is as old as the agency itself, there was the need to revisit it as a resolution would boost staff morale and also increase productivity in the long run.
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As a first bold step towards achieving harmonization, Akinkuotu said management had constituted a committee headed by the Farouk Umar, Director of Safety Electronics and Engineering Services, with “the mandate to look in-depth at the circumstance of harmonization, cost of harmonization, our ability to achieve harmonization, the validity of whether we have been harmonized or not, and then make a report and present to management.”
He disclosed that the committee had already submitted the said report, assuring that management would immediately convene a meeting to “review the report in its totality and examine whether or not there is a disparity. We will also discuss if we can pay for it and if not, how do we move this forward.”
He said however that after considering the report, another report will be prepared and presented to the government for ratification.
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Akinkuotu expressed optimism that even though the harmonization issue has lingered for over 14 years, management was determined to tackle it headlong, stressing that “if we plug all the loopholes and cut down on some of the waste and be more prudent in our expenditure, we will make a little more money and it really shouldn’t be that difficult attaining harmonization.”
The NAMA boss who tasked staff to be more dedicated to their duties noted that in line with the staff-oriented disposition of his administration, various promotions have been obtained across the board for workers.
Ifeoma Okeke
