Last week the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) rattled the civil aviation industry with a preemptive protest designed to inform the federal government that its planned concession of four key airports in the country has threatened its members’ comfort zone. NUATE’s fears are well placed. Nigeria’s concession and privatization landscape is dotted with heart-rending failures that have impoverished workers of the aff ected institutions. Nigeria Airways is a sad reminder of government’s cruelty to workers.
Th e national carrier was liquidated more than a decade ago and its prime assets sold to Arik Air at give-away price. No one paid the workers’ terminal benefi ts or pension. Most of the workers died in penury. Just two weeks ago, the federal government grudgingly allocated funds for settlement of the workers’ pensions, about sixteen years after the liquidation of the national carrier. Several years after the consummation of the concession of the second terminal of the Murtala Mohammed Airport, Ikeja (MM2), the mismanagement and brazen cases of criminal negligence that bedeviled the transaction are still being sorted out through litigation.
Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited, the concessionaire of MM2 had the luxury of drafting the agreement for the transaction without inputs from experts in the Federal Ministry of Aviation. Th at left room for deliberate equivocations in some clauses of the transaction agreement that allows the concessionaire to lay claims to the airport’s general aviation terminal (GAT).
Th e foregoing probably informed the pre-emptive protest of NUATE last week. NUATE is openly opposed to the move to concession the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano and Port Harcourt International Airport. Th e reason is obvious. Th e four airports are the cash cows of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN). Without them, FAAN is empty. MMIA commands the highest air passenger traffi c with Abuja Airport as a distant second. Port Harcourt and Kano follow in that order.
Th e rest are mere aerodromes funded from proceeds of the four airports marked for concessioning. NUATE’s resistance is partially informed by the federal government’s passive posture toward the transaction. Vice president Yemi Osinbajo casually announced such a serious transaction that aff ects the welfare of thousands of workers through his tweeter handle. To worsen a bad situation, his fi gure was promptly contradicted by another announcement by the minister of state for transport.
Th e vice president said the federal executive council had approved the concession of Lagos and Abuja airports. Th e minister added Kano and Port Harcourt airports in his own release. No one knows which of the fi gures could be fl aunted in offi cial circles. Th e federal government made the grievous mistake of formally announcing the planned concession before opening a dialogue with the workers’ unions. But the union itself acted hastily as details of the plan are being worked out.
Airport concession is a global trend. Governments only regulate the operation of airports while private investors manage them along profi t lines. Government’s decision would almost certainly deplete some jobs in FAAN and rob some of the top offi cials of the slush funds that facilitated their indecent ostentation. Th at is why government must dialogue with the unions to assure the workers that they would not be subjected to the cruel treatment meted to staff of the defunct Nigeria Airways. Th ose to be sacked must be adequately compensated. On the other hand, the outright rejection of the government’s plan by NUATE is simply unacceptable.
Th e union is merely placing its members’ interest above that of Nigeria. Th e federal government lacks the fi nancial muscle to upgrade the infrastructure in the nation’s airports to world standards. Millions of dollars pumped into the so-called rehabilitation of the airports about fi ve years ago did not make visible impacts.
Private investors are the only ones who could monitor the use of funds invested in airport infrastructure and ensure that they are not siphoned into private pockets. Th at is the essence of concession. Th e federal government on its part owes members of NUATE and every Nigerian the responsibility of ensuring a transparent and hitch-free transaction that would avoid a replay of the failed privatization of the power industry. Th e sale of the generation and distribution arms of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to cash-strapped, inexperienced fi rms has worsened Nigeria’s power supply problems.
If a similar mistake is repeated in the airports concession exercise, Nigeria would have succeeded in repulsing foreign investors who form their fi rst impression of the country at the airports. Th e concessionaires must therefore be selected based on experience and fi nancial muscle of the bidding fi rms. Th e privatization of the power sector went through rigorous bidding process but ended up in the hands of incompetent fi rms.
Open bidding is therefore not the panacea to the choice of competent investors. NUATE should not set that rigid rule for government. In almost four decades of existence, FAAN has failed to take the nation’s airports to world standard. No one expects it to do that now. NUATE’s move to halt the concession is a senseless exercise which must fail. Th e only thing is that government must avoid the criminal negligence that bedeviled the concession of MM2.
