By Francis Ogwo
Plans are underway by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to recover over N22 billion owed aviation agencies by indigenous carriers in the last 20 years a move observers say may plunge air transport into huge challenges.
This recent decision was made public by NCAA’s Director-General, Capt. Musa Nuhu, at a stakeholders and general public hearing on the repeal and enactment of civil aviation bills of aviation agencies.
Nuhu was of the view that this was the only way to make the airlines pay debts.
According to him, the attitude of many of the airlines that failed to remit what they collected as five per cent Ticket Sales Charge (TSC) and Passenger Service Charge (PSC) collected on behalf of the agencies has become worrisome.
The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, had on Monday estimated the debts of Nigerian airlines over the last 10 years to aviation agencies at $6.9 million and N19.6 billion (N22.2 billion).
In his words: “We are going to start taking action and implement actions to recover most of the money. We have started action last week on airlines that owe us. The irony is that these are taxes the airlines collected from the passengers. These are not their money. They collected but refused to remit.
“We have also heard that the government has refused to assist the carriers. We all remember that in 2011, the airlines received close to N200billion. They are yet to pay back. If foreign airlines are not paying, why are our own airlines not paying?” Sirika queried.
