Kudos for Chidoka over MMA2 Rating

Minister of Aviation, Mr. Osita Chidoka

Bi-Courtney tasks minister on privatisation

Minister of Aviation, Mr. Osita Chidoka, on Thursday received kudos for his objective appraisal of the industry and acknowledgment of the importance of the second terminal of Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA2) operated by Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited.

While reacting to a newspaper report of Chidoka’s appraisal confirming MMA2 as an airport terminal with high rating in the country, Bi-Courtney listed the benefits of privatisation and commended the minister for his objective appraisal as well as his refusal to mislead the country on the true state of the nation’s aviation industry, and the positive steps he has taken to arrest the decay in the sector.

MMA2 is a private sector response to infrastructure decay and deficit in Nigeria, under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) programme of the federal government. The terminal, on concession to Bi-Courtney on a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis, was inaugurated in 2007 for exclusive facilitation of domestic air passengers leaving or arriving Lagos.

Chidoka, who on Tuesday briefed aviation reporters on his plan to tackle the many problems affecting the crisis ridden sector, cited a recent survey as he affirmed that the MMA2 is rated highly among all the airport terminals in the country.

The minister also noted at the briefing that government was not comfoartable with the report that none of the country’s airports rank among the best 10 in Africa and among the best 20 in the world.

He declared that plans were already underway to certify the Lagos and Abuja airports to meet the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) requirements, saying: “It is regrettable that most of our airports are under performing. Our airports are rated poorly by Skytrax. We must do a quick turnaround.”

Bi-Courtney, however, urged the federal government to buy into the wisdom of restructuring the industry to allow the private sector to lead and thereby attract massive investment.
Pledging to continue to make the nation proud, Bi-Courtney stated:

“Across the world, airports are being privatised outrightly, or given out as concessions to private operators.

“If Britain can concession Gatwick Airport terminal to a Nigerian, Adebayo Ogunlesi, what more do we have to say? What the industry needs desperately is a thorough liberalisation and overhaul of the regulatory agencies to make them more efficient and more professional, so as to be able to stamp out corruption.

“The reforms at the seaports, though incomplete, provides precedence, just as the success of the telecommunications sector liberalisation programme has delivered 110 million telephone lines, created hundreds of thousands of jobs and drawn in millions of dollars in foreign direct investment in 12 years. This demonstrates the enormous power that can be unleashed by leaving critical sectors to private capital.”

Bi-Courtney noted that it had spent over N2billion upgrading its facilities in 2014, adding: “The MMA2 with about 4.5 million/annum passenger capacity and a land area of 20, 000 square metres, is the first BOT project in the area of infrastructure development in Nigeria that has been completed successfully by a Nigerian company.