The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, Amalgamated Professional Association has listed demands to be meant by the Management and the new administration to ensure safety in the nation’s airspace and avoid industrial action.
These demands is contained in a communique issued and signed after an emergency meeting conveyed address recent appointment and deployment in the agency by the Presidents of the professional Association namely: the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, NATCA, National Association of Air Traffic Engineers NAAE, Aeronautical Information Management Association of Nigeria AIMAN and National Air Traffic Communication Association of Nigeria NACAN.
Agreements Reached as signed by NGEREM W.G President AIMAN, ALH. RABIU M.S President NACAN, ENGR MIRI S.D President NAAE and AGORO A.O President NATCA.
At the end of the meeting, it was collectively agreed by all stakeholders that there is the need to bring to the attention of the new government and public an insight into the unwholesome regime of recent appointments and redeployment in NAMA that has left a sour taste in the mouth.
We note with chagrin the flagrant neglect of the Act that established the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency with the creation of needless directorates within the non-core services. Sad to also note that the new directorates created by fiat does not have any meaningful impact in the operations of the agency.
With the creation of two additional directorates and units outside the core service and appointments of non-staff of the agency to head the departments as General Managers; thus side tracking thoroughbred career personnel from rising through the ranks to such positions, is against extant rules and therefore not acceptable.
This unwholesome development completely negates the regular staff of the agency as much as it has distorted the progression of core career professionals in the agency. It has therefore become imperative to point out that the creation of new directorates within the non-core service area is not in the interest of the agency and particularly air safety.
In the midst of the lop-sidedness that is the lot of the agency where non-core areas are overstaffed as against acute manpower shortage in the core areas, it is sad to also note that to date, the agency does not have a befitting head office in Abuja and many staff relocated have no office spaces to operate from.
The meeting note with urgent attention and call for the re-dress of the monthly deduction of a whopping 40% from the IGR of the agency into the coffers of the Federal Government.
Stakeholders at the meeting also frown at the 40% deduction from source from the internally generated revenue (IGR) of the cost recovery agency has left a toll of unbearable consequences on the agency’s core mandate in the areas of operations and technical services provision.
The meeting thereby raised a clarion call for caution and to draw the attention of the new government to the malaise that is gnawing at the soul of air navigation service provision in Nigeria which is dangerously inimical to the smooth running of the agency saddled with the responsibility of ensuring safety within the country’s airspace.
Demands
On the strength of the collective experience of members of the associations on the lamentable situation around the agency, we demand as a matter of urgency that the relevant authorities should immediately do the following in the interest of safety.
A downward review of the 40% deduction on the internally generated revenue (IGR) of the agency the present statuesque hampers the progress of the agency;
The government should review the recent creation of directorates and appointment into the agency by strictly stick to the provisions of the act that established NAMA as a guide to the creation of new directorates, employment and appointments of non-agency staff to the rank of career positions. It must also be reiterated that qualified staff of the agency are given first priority before bringing in an outsider to take up any career-tied appointments in the agency. As a matter of fact, the practice of appointing non-staff to take up career- tied positions has demoralized the staff of the agency and should not be encouraged in anyway.
We join hands with our member unions for the immediate release of the negotiated NAMA’s Staff Condition of Service (COS) in order to forestall further industrial action;
The meeting request that the professional responsibility of the agency as the country’s safety lub must be respected and provided with appropriation to be captured in annual budgetary allocation. This is a known tradition in the running of the agency which will go a long way in achieving a re-jig of the agency to deliver on its statutory mandate:
• We respectively ask that urgent attention be given to periodic and traditional mandatory training and re-training of technical and operational professional staff of the agency which has been impaired lately by paucity of funds,
We note with pride that the agency has staff strength of highly technical personnel across the core professional cadres with the requisite exposure and training who are competent and capable to pilot the affairs of the agency efficiently. The right and timely motivation of the staff must therefore be encouraged to enable them contribute maximally to the growth and development of the agency vis-à-vis air safety.
