By Martha Aisosa Aikherome
It has become the
trade mark of paid traducers, outright mischief makers to continue to obfuscate
the facts of the now famous Bilateral Air Service Agreement BASA fund.
There’s a deliberate
campaign of calumny and dissemination of outright falsehood against the
activities of the Aviation Minister, Princess Stella Adaeze Oduah with regard
to the utilization of the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) fund by the
Federal Ministry of Aviation. Some versions of the mischievous publications
quote non-existent figures of the BASA fund in the region of hundreds of
millions in US Dollars allegedly missing or utilized without approval and due
process certification from the relevant authorities.
According to sources
at the Ministry to be sure, the entire sum in the BASA fund stands at
$74million dollars. Out of this, former Aviation Minister, Mrs Fedelia Akuabuta
Njeze sought and obtained approval from the Presidency and the National
Assembly for the utilization of $60million (about N7.5 billion) from the fund
for the rehabilitation of infrastructure at the nation’s airports in line with
the Civil Aviation Act 2006. It must however be noted that this sum could not
be accessed before the end of her stewardship.
Worried by the scale
of infrastructure deficit at the nation’s airports, the current Aviation
Minister initiated fresh processes to access the already approved $60miilion
from the BASA fund to form part of the resources required to execute the
Remodeling of 11 airports across the country in the first phase.
Like her predecessor,
all relevant approval from the Presidency and the National Assembly were
obtained to access and utilize the fund to address the huge infrastructure
challenge in the sector. So nothing could be farther from the truth; and it
indeed smacks of sheer mischief to insinuate that the fund had been accessed
and utilized without following due process. Reconstruction work at the 11
airports is over 90 per cent completed and will be due for commissioning soon.
It bears mentioning
at this point that stashing BASA fund in the banks when critical infrastructure
challenges require immediate and urgent redress serves no one any useful
purpose, not the nation’s aviation sector; to be sure! It will even amount to
official irresponsibility and abdication of leadership when considered against
the backdrop that BASA fund, according to the 2006 Civil Aviation Act is
intended to be deployed for the development of infrastructure and civil
aviation in the country.
We wish to advise all
those who have made it a career to write frivolous petitions against the
present minister of aviation in the hope of distracting her from vigorously
pursuing the wholesale transformation of the sector to give up this trade as
the minister remains focused in re-writing the history of the aviation sector
in Nigeria.
It is equally trite
to caution journalists to take extra care in entertaining all manner of
petitions from this clan of professional petition writers thereby according
them underserved and undue publicity; and in the process unwittingly tarnish
their hard-won professional integrity.
It is in line with
the desire to bring about the needed development to this all important sector
that the Aviation Industry the world over is a multi-billion dollar industry;
as such it is imperative that the Nigerian aviation industry attracts the right
global players. The Federal Ministry of Aviation and some of her agencies have
embarked on the first phase of a long planned international investment road
show this past weekend. The trip takes the team to China, the United States and
Canada.
This investment road
show is a key element of the Ministry’s Roadmap for the transformation of the
country’s Air Transport Industry. The Roadmap was put in place and presented
for approval by Mr President in November 2012, to set a clear agenda and offer
strategic markers and guidelines for the steps to be taken.
Nigerian aviation
sector and the multitude of passengers and other stakeholders deserve the best
from the critical sector of air travel
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