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They have faulted the move as not being in line with the standard and recommended practices (SARPS) of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
Some industry critics and analysts have said such a move is retrogressive and capable of stunting the growth of the aviation industry which is already in line with current global trends in aviation.
Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) said the decision was totally against section 8335 of ICAO regulation which made for the separation of aviation agencies. According to the ICAO, “Separation of provision from the regulation is consistent with principles of good governance; the regulatory oversight function must be seen as independent and transparent.”
According to Nogie Meggison, the chairman, AON, “It is not right to have the NCAA as the referee and the player at the same time. NCAA has been statutorily established in compliance with ICAO set standards and practices.
“We believe that the information given to the committee set up in 2011 to make that decision is obviously obsolete and outdated now with regard to the ICAO regulation which Nigeria is not only a signatory to but has also produced the first African ICAO president.He was the one who headed the committee in 1999 which separated the agencies from the then federal Civil Aviation Authority (FCAA) in line with the ICAO regulation quoted above.”
He said it was unfortunate that after other countries like Ghana and South Africa visited Nigeria to understudy how the separation of regulatory and service provider agencies worked in order to replicate them in their countries, Nigeria was talking about merging them. “Unfortunately, this is like a move from the analogue to digital and back to analogue system again. We know that government is trying to cut cost because of the recurrent expenditure being 80 per cent of the budget, but these agencies are self-sustaining without government funding them.
“We plead with the government to take a second look at the recommendation because of the danger it portends for the industry at large,” Meggison said.
An aviation analyst, Olumide Ohunayo, was not totally against merging some of the agencies but insisted that the regulatory authority should not be merged with the service providers.
“I am really disappointed with the recommendations and approvals. The industry has moved and grown beyond merging all the agencies. I support the merging of NIMET and NAMA to reduce cost. But NCAA should be left alone to regulate the others,” he said, adding that merging the service providers with NCAA would dilute the powers of the regulatory authority.
Also some industry workers insisted that the recommendation would not work because the aviation agencies were established based on Acts of Parliament and as such will also take Acts of Parliament to merge them into one entity.
The secretary-general, Nigerian Aviation Professional Association (NAPA), Mr Abdul Rasaq Saidu, said the step has been taken before but had failed.
According to him, the industry came to its current state because of the failure of the last system which merged all the agencies together resulting in so much bottlenecks and inefficiency.
Saidu warned that such a move was capable of costing the industry the most coveted Category One certification from the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
He said the government was ill advised because such step has been taken before but it failed, it didn’t work when the Retired Air Vice Marshal Nsikak Eduok, practiced it. Secondly, aviation is global and it is being regulated by international bodies like ICAO, International Air Transport Association (IATA) and so on and if they do that Nigeria may lose the Category One status. I don’t know who advised them, I think that they are been misadvised.
SOURCE
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