Sen. Hadi Sirika
Minister of Aviation, Sen. Hadi Sirika has reiterated the Federal Government’s resolve to ensure that safety critical infrastructure are installed and upgraded across airports in the country.
The Minister stated this at a thank you meeting with stakeholders in Lagos for their understanding on the closure of the domestic runway for the installation of the airfield ground lightning systems.
He said, the major concern of government is safety, security and efficiency with departures from point A and land in point B.
According to him, the rehabilitation of the runway, the airfield lightning systems, centre line, the approach and others speak to three fundamental issues which are, safety, efficiency of the airport and the airlines in terms of cost savings and operational comfort.
“Am very glad and proud that we have been able to achieve this under the leadership of Capt. Yadudu”.
Sirika noted that, despite that the contractor was three weeks late in delivery, the project was delivered and well done.
“Any how we thank him for delivering the runway, the approach light is good”.
On the continuous maintenance of the runway, the minister said, plans have been put in place to ensure this, saying that, the maintenance is the flagship of the expenditure and every airport has its maintenance programme and this programme has been strengthened and FAAN has been asked to rejuvenate, reassign and boost the low capacity of its personnel to be able to ensure this.
In his opening remarks, the Managing Director, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, Capt. Rabiu Yadudu said, while some people preferred the status quo to remain after fifteen years of absence of lights on the runway, they had to push and annoy some stakeholders to close the runway to bring it back to operation 100%.
“We thank them for their understanding and support, it is very important and we hope we can continue counting on you in the future on other more critical projects”.
