Home Uncategorized MMIA cashless transaction: Leakages will be blocked….Shinaba

MMIA cashless transaction: Leakages will be blocked….Shinaba

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MMIA Lagos Airport Manager, Mrs Victoria Shinaba

There are fears in some quarters that the proposed cashless payment by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) will not be effective, but the airport manager, Murtala Muhammed Airport Ikeja, Mrs Shin-Aba, says the introduction will block leakages, reduce corruption and raise the revenue base of the airport. She also spoke with…………. on recent aircraft attacks and steps taken to forestall further occurrence.
Excerpts

The Murtala Muhammed International Airport and other airports across the country will be adopting cashless transactions soon. What informed this development especially at the MMIA?

To create enabling environment for businesses in Nigeria, for people coming to do business in Nigeria. The airports especially the international airports as entry points into the country and that is why we try to make sure that everybody coming into the country to do business has an enabling environment in such a manner that they are not harassed, And that they don’t pay what they are not supposed to pay. We want them to pay in an easy and convenient way so that they do business easily. We have started with visa on arrival which is ok now. People coming to do business in Nigeria will just go to the immigration website fill the form and they will send something to them that will show the airline and on getting here, we have constructed a cubicle for innovation, it is very convenient and comfortable; we will use them to process the visa. Again the cashless operation is for convenience, comfort and to reduce interactions and money changing hands. And the basic thing is that no government official should handle cash. No cash transactions. They are now different modes of payments. We can do online transfer, POS. For FAAN, we are almost there and we are getting ready. FAAN has deployed POS to almost all our revenue points. When you come and want to do any business with FAAN, no FAAN staff will collect cash from you. It is either you do a transfer that goes straight to our remita accounts, that is TSA account or you pay through the POS that still goes straight to remita. Then in case you don’t have ATM and you can’t do transfer and you have cash; we now have some agents of remita because the money goes to remita. They will be strategically positioned to collect those cash. As they collect the cash, they issue receipt. In fact I had meeting with them yesterday. We have a committee at headquarters working on this cashless operations because it has to be in all the airports and not just only the international. We are ironing out the grey areas but no government official as at today in Nigeria starting from May must handle cash. If you don’t have an ATM that use the POS and you can’t do bank transfer, and maybe you cannot go to bank and pay and bring remita confirmation of payment. You can go to the bank if it is convenient; the most important thing is the convenience of the passengers. Then, to make sure that cash does not change hands between government officials and passengers or customers, that is the bases for the cashless operations and for convenience.

What about the sensitization?

We played it to the secretary but we need to make some changes. We have jingles in different Nigerian languages and banners too. The sensitization is still ongoing. There are the banners, they sent 16 to us from the headquarters. We will put them in strategic positions so that even when a customer is sitting with you, he or she is reading that they are not supposed to pay cash.

If cashless operation is starting May, don’t you think it is coming rather late for passengers because you would have done a lot of sensitization and awareness campaign before now?

We are having meetings with all the stakeholders and the secretary is coming to see the readiness of the agencies.

Since the process is to help passengers relax without having contact with people; can you just list some of these payments?

Some of them include: car park, cargo surcharge, casual operators, unscheduled flights, air cargo fee, cargo surcharge and access charge, not the main access charge because that has been concessioned. We so many operations that involve money changing hands both at local and international on the FAAN side. In Customs, everybody knows that people pay duties n dutiable goods; aside oil, Custom is the next revenue generating agency for FG. For Immigration, people now pay for visa on arrival, For Quarantine, they pay too for some tests. For NAMA, they pay and the 5 per cent for NCAA. So there are so many revenue that comes in direct at times at the airport. There are some that are not direct and there are some that are direct. For rent now, people don’t pay cash for rent. They go to the bank and pay.

What informed this decision?

It is just to curb corruption. When we need to exchange money, there is body language and so many things. Some people can shortchange payment and all those kind of things. That one should be eliminated. Then the government wants to let the general public know that whatever services they are paying for is going into government coffers. So you are not giving me cash and the issue of I don’t know where the money is going to will not be there any longer. They know that the money is going to the government. Then for the comfort of their travelling public, they don’t need to carry cash. If you are travelling from abroad and you have your ATM, you should be able to transact to your business and leave the airport. If you have internet banking, you can do it and move on.

This process is a laudable one by the FG. Do you think it will make FAAN to actually know how much they generate annually?

Definitely, it will help things. We know how much we generate and we know how much that comes in but we still know that you can’t eliminate some leakages. But with this now, that one will be taken care of because you can go to a point. If am not collecting cash for government and am coming to work, I think there is a limit of amount of money I should be carrying on my body. It will curb leakages and improve revenue at the end of the day.

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