The Federal Government has vowed to recover a total of N37bn from airlines still owing various categories of debts.
This is just as the government stated that the ban on Emirates Airlines will continue.
The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, revealed this at this week’s ministerial press briefing organised by the Presidential Communication Team at the presidential villa, Abuja.
Sirika who said airlines owe federal agencies N37 billion also explained that Arik owes between N13 billion and N14 billion.
The minister added that construction firm, Bi-Courtney, owes the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria about N14 billion.
He said the aviation service provider had not repaid any part of that amount in its last 13 years of operations. This, he said, contravenes the existing agreement between it and the government.
Sirika stated that the debt is spread across government agencies including the FAAN, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, among others.
When asked about the disbursement of the N5bn COVID-19 palliative to aviation stakeholders, the minister said it was initially decided that airlines owing aviation parastatals should not benefit but the President wanted to cushion the effect of the pandemic on businesses.
Sirika added, “So, this brings us to the question of the money owed to the parastatals. It is about N37bn that they owe them, especially, Arik, the culprit. I know they owe us about N13bn, N14bn
“If you owe FAAN, you owe the government. Bi-Courtney owes about N14bn as of the last count. It has not paid a single dime since the time he started to run the terminal building.
“And we have not ceased giving him electricity, water, fire cover, and so on and so forth. He hasn’t paid a dime for 13 years. And if we go to shut his doors, the media, of course, and Nigerian people will say we’re killing businesses but he is killing our services too because we have to have that money to provide for that toilet that you’re seeing in Lagos airport. Most of these are living by their IGRs and so, we need the money but we will go after the money.”
Sirika explained that the company flouted government regulations from its inception when it built the Lagos terminal in the wrong location.
He explained, “They did not build in the original location that we gave. They moved to another location. They also annexed what is not part of the agreement, like the car park and the school and so on and started to build a hotel, which is not part of the agreement. But that’s another issue.
“So, they produced a terminal. But when you produce a terminal, you should be paying the agreed money back to the government over time to a point where you will return the terminal building.
“In this case, it was supposed to be 12 years because he didn’t do anything ab initio. After two years of doing nothing, he now quickly built when already two, three, four years has gone from 12 years.”
Sirika added that in those 13 years, the firm had not paid FAAN or any agency a single dime for operating the terminal.
“So, yes I said, he has not paid a dime to us and is still there and we are providing electricity for him. We are providing security to him. We are providing fire cover to him, and so on so forth. And we’re providing our own runway for him to land. We are also providing our own apron because it is our space, our land. He is not paying a dime yet,” he said.
Speaking about the suspension of Emirates Airlines’ operation in Nigeria, the minister said the government took that step because the company is “discriminatory against our country and it is not acceptable.” He said there is no resumption date yet.
According to him, Dubai demands that Nigerians cannot fly to UAE except through Emirates airline and if they choose to do so through other airlines like Ethiopia, Qatar, Turkish or other airlines, they must remain in the country of that airline for two weeks if they are Nigerians before they continue to Dubai.
“Nigeria considers this as discriminatory and will not allow that to stand,” Sirika said.
He said with the 200 million travelling population from Nigeria, and the huge foreign exchange from travellers, “we cannot afford to be hoodwinked to their own terms and conditions.”
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