By Ade Jacobs
The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, has debunked claims by airlines operators that it increased Passenger Service Charge arbitrarily without consulting other stakeholders in the aviation sector.
Stakeholders in the sector had accused FAAN of deliberately killing the industry through the imposition of charges on airlines.
The authority said it consulted both airlines operators and other stakeholders, including the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA before it came up with the new charge template.
This was disclosed by the managing director of FAAN Captain Yadudu on day three of the public hearing on the amendment of the Civil Aviation Amendment Bills of the six aviation agencies in Abuja.
For instance, the FAAN boss said Access charge which is one of the contentious issues, is a standard world practice that’s not peculiar to Nigeria because “Access is a once and for all payment an investor shall make to the authority, where is this never done in the world?
“ It is the capital sum of money based on land price, lease tenure, capital investment, infrastructural facilities, what more amount of transparency would you want? This is a very simple and clear fact that there is nothing we are hiding.
“It is an amount investors pay before they sign a legal agreement contract because we need to protect the agency. This is a simple and clear example of the fact, there is nothing underneath. We take all the criticisms.
“Everything we are discussing here, we are taking down and everything of value we will look at it, and even before the house comes up with any resolutions we on our own will look at what we will do to improve it. Not only with regards to service delivery but our relationship with our clients and stakeholders.”
The FAAN boss said the authority cannot be blackmailed from performing its responsibility to transform the nation‘s aviation sector even though.
“We must be accountable and to be accountable we have to be alive to our responsibility.”
Airlines operators have seriously complained of multiple charges by FAAN. These include Ticket Sales Charge, TSA, Cargo Sales Charge, CSC, Value Added Tax, VAT, Tax, Landing and Parking fee, Navigation fee and Terminal charges.
Others are the Security taxes, Fuel surcharges, Handling charges, Corporate income tax, and fuel tax amongst others.