………to summon Sirika over MM2 concession
………calls for violators of agreement
The senate committee on Privatization wants all those who signed the concession agreement of the build, operate and transfer of the murtala Muhammed Terminal 2 in Lagos to be prosecuted for failure to honour the agreement.
Chairman of the committee , senator Ben Murray-Bruce said the failure to honour the agreement signed on behalf of the Federal Government has called to question the sincerity of government to participate with the Private sector.
senator Murray-Bruce stated this during a tour of the terminal.
The concession agreement under the build, operate and transfer, for over ten years now, has been a running battle between managers of the terminal two in Lagos over the alleged failure of Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN to honour the concession agreement signed.
The manager if the terminal has alleged that some of the agreements which includes the building of a hotel, operations of regional flights and management of the terminal one have been put on hold by FAAN despite court rulings in its favour.
Chairman, Senate committee on privatization, Senator Ben Murray-Bruce after a tour of the the terminal said failure to honour any agreement signed sends a wrong signal to any would be investor.
He stressed that those who have brought the government into ridicule with the signing of the agreement and failed to leave by it would be prosecuted.
“The sector may eventually get a zero allocation from the budget because the private sector is willing to solve aviation problems but agreements signed between government and the private sector must be honoured and all those who signed the agreements, if lousy, must be tried, we will raise the issue with the Attorney-General of the Federation, they must be tried, the lawyers from the government side must be prosecuted if they did a bad deal, we are not passing any judgement on anybody but we want to protect the rights of Nigerians”
Senator Murray-Bruce noted that the minister of state aviation, senator Hadi Sirika would be summon to explain to the committee issues surrounding the concession agreement.
“We are going to summon the Minister of Aviation to the National Assembly o explain the agreement, in fact, the current concession issues must be fixed and resolved before privatising or concessioning any further airport in the country, because the consequences of all these is that all those who wants to get into concession are discouraged, we have actually given p the aviation sector to the private sector.
He explained that the process of concession of the four major airports in the country would be put on hold for now until the terminal two issues were resolve to demonstrate governments commitment for the public private sector participation in the repositioning of the nations economic sectors.
