The National Assembly has assured the management of Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL), operators of the Murtala Muhammed Airport 2 (MMA2) and a member of The Resort Group, that it would resolve all the issues surrounding the MMA2 concession amicably.
This assurance was given on Friday when the Joint Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Aviation visited MMA2 during a tour of the three terminals of the Murtala Muhammed Airport as part of their oversight functions.
Muhammad Adamu Aliero, chairman, Senate Committee on Aviation, and Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, his House of Representatives counterpart, who spoke after listening to presentations by Olugbenga Ogunmoyela, director/group consultant, The Resort Group, and Jari Williams, chief executive officer, BASL, gave the assurance that the National Assembly was poised to resolve all the issues between the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and BASL over the MMA2 concession.
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They demanded and got copies of the concession agreement and promised to study them accordingly.
“We are going to wade into this controversy between Bi-Courtney and FAAN. We are going to do our very best to broker peace. I think that is exactly what the Joint Committee of the National Assembly is up to. To make sure that justice is done, we are poised to solve the lingering crisis for the benefit of Nigeria, for the benefit of Bi-Courtney and other stakeholders involved in the project,” Aliero said.
“Of course, we have requested for all the necessary documents and too, we are aware of the court judgments. So, we are going to explore whatever means available to bring lasting solution to the issue on ground,” he said.
On her own part, Onyejeocha said the visitation started from the international airport and it was an assignment that would take the team through all airports across the country.
“So, it is of immense importance that we visit MMA2 today. And on the issue on ground, we have requested all necessary documents which we believe will help us to get to the root of the matter. With the collaboration of everyone, we will try our possible best to resolve the logjam between Bi-Courtney and FAAN,” Onyejeocha said.
“The truth of the matter is that Nigeria has to move on. And so, we are going to do everything humanly possible to see that we do what is good for Nigeria and will work effectively to ensure that there is unity and progress of the country. And having said that, we have requested that they give us the first agreement and the second agreement and without prejudice to anyone, we will keep our fingers crossed until the end,” she said.
Earlier in his presentation, Ogunmoyela had lamented the refusal of FAAN to obey the letters of the concession agreement it willingly entered into with MMA2, saying this was not good for the image of the country.
He recalled that BASL had a development plan that would have enabled it to have four additional fingers and other facilities at the terminal and said this was truncated by FAAN, whose leadership, he added, had been changed several times since the MMA2 concession started.
Ogunmoyela specifically expressed dismay that all the resources invested by BASL for regional flight operations to start in the terminal had gone down the drain after FAAN and other government agencies truncated the approval obtained from the Federal Government by the company for the operations, describing this as “a negative signal for the country”.
He, therefore, urged the lawmakers to use their “collective wisdom and good offices to ensure that justice is done in this matter”.
Also speaking, Williams lamented that FAAN had violated almost all the provisions of the concession agreement and disobeyed all the court judgments on the concession thereby denying BASL over 50 percent of its deserved revenue.
While describing the lawmakers’ visit as timely, he appealed to them to do everything possible to ensure that FAAN did not go away with “this impunity”.
IFEOMA OKEKE
