Determined to reduce the number of people that throng into the Hajj and Cargo terminal at the Lagos International Airport, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN is set to automate the access tollgate.
The automation which is at its completion stage is to come on live July 4, 2021.
This is just as the Authority says, it was addressing the inadequate apron space at the airport.
Capt. Rabiu Yadudu as a panelists on the topic: Creating Conducive Environment for Agro-allied said, sanitizing the area where there were lot of agents and some touts in the area was of grave concern to them.
He noted that with automation, the crowds always noticed around the SAHCO and NAHCO warehouses would reduce with time, adding that all stakeholders were in the know of the action being taken by FAAN to enthrone sanity to the terminal.
The FAAN boss however said, if the process put in place by the Authority is to work, all stakeholders must support them and buy-in.
He frowned at “That terminal has many stakeholders and for any solution to work, we must work together with other stakeholders like SAHCO, NAHCO and even the customs because if you want to do something holistic that would last you need their full cooperation, if NAHCO wants it to be done when they keep coming back to say they have somebody locked outside, they know him how do you confirm? If people keep giving people ID cards or visitors card that they can come in how do you achieve that or SAHCO does that how do you achieve that?”.
“If customs doesn’t cooperate and keeping saying this man is our man he has our invitation, how do you achieve that?One is saying let us give them the visitors cards even the visitors cards when people start asking for 50,100 and 200 so, how do you resolve that so, FAAN alone , it will be very, very different because FAAN doesn’t provide the actual services in that terminal, the stakeholders that are doing it we are happy that they are concerned but we are working on it and FAAN is committed to doing it but without full support and cooperation somehow, somewhere somebody can undermine this”.
Capt. Yadudu also stated that work was ongoing in the expansion of the current cargo apron at the MMIA due to complaints of inadequate parking space by cargo airline operators.
“FAAN has been doing a lot, we are busy developing a new terminal way after the current one that is inadequate and we do concede that it is grossly inadequate and it is a major cause for concern and we are trying to expand that particular apron ahead of the completion of the main one”.
He explained that the new cargo terminal being constructed by the CCECC the same company that is constructing the new international airport terminal, would take care of the issue of space.
” it very big I assure you much bigger than the need for now, adequate for the next 20-30 years and we have gone very far, we were there last last year on inspection, so the big o me is coming, we are doing more than expansion, expansion, we have a project for that I think this year the cargo terminal, the biggest one is the new terminal that we are constructing”.
Contributing, Mrs. Victoria Shinaba MMIA Manager also explained that the closure of the monument gate was to cut down on the influx of people to the area.
She said, the gate is not permanently closed as it is opened between morning and 1800 hours.
On the Hajj and Cargo tollgate automation, she said, anybody accessing the area must have an ID and for vehicles every process have been put in place.
“All the stakeholders we have meant with them, we have meant generally with everybody, we went and meant agencies one on one, we have test run it and it is good, its workable”.
“By July 4th, we are going live and all this crowd will reduce automatically with time and you can’t access the place without ID and if you are accessing with your vehicle we have everything in place, with time the crowd in Hajj and cargo terminal will be reduced”.
