Aviation union leaders and their members in the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria this morning gathered and carried placards with different inscriptions and chanting solidarity songs to register their anger over the Federal Government unrelenting move to concession the 4 major airports in Nigeria.
This is just as the unions issued a December deadline to the FAAN Management to remit all cooperative deductions, pay up outstanding furniture grant, gratuities of deceased and retired staff, actuarial valuation etc.
The placards inscription read: Airport concession is an economic terrorism, 40/60% sharing is fraud, FAAN is in N140billion financial crises, concession is aimed at killing the 18 local airports, FAAN is in N140billion financial crises, concession is aimed at killing our 18 local airports etc.
The union leaders who too turns to address the FAAN workers stated that, the minister of aviation had lied that the concessionaire would invest in the airport when the actual truth was that, there would not be any investment of any sort rather, the concessionaire was coming to reap where they did not sow.
“The basis of granting the concessionaire the lion share of 60% of the profit remains opaque when, as earlier mentioned, there exists no real financial investment to be made. This sounds to us like Take-Operate-and Transfer (TOT) which is simply reaping without sowing”.
Comrade Aba Ocheme, General Secretary, National Union of Air Transport Employees, NUATE said, a cursory look through the Outline Business Case, OBC, showed that the promoters were unsure of the concept to adopt between Build-Operate- and Transfer (BOT) and Rehabilitate-operate-and Transfer (ROT).
“This apparent confusion to us stems from an established fact; in these particular Terminals, there is neither a thing to build nor rehabilitate. In that case, if there should arise a need for expansion in the Terminals (which is not envisaged in another 25 years), then the Green Fields concession option (which means building new terminals) would have been more applicable”.
According to him, no case whatsoever had been established for a concession of any airport terminal in Nigeria in the first place as the terminals earmarked for concession are brand new 21st century terminals which have absolutely no need for any significant investment other than maintenance in the next 25 years.
“This fact is confirmed by the OBC itself. Therefore, in our considered opinion, the only valid opinion for consideration is to negotiate an airports Management Contract, should there be such a need – not a concession”.
He further went on to stress that, there were a lot of joggling of facts in the OBC as many claims were outrightly false.
“In many instances, there are clear attempts to under-value the concession assets, while at the same time making claims that aim to over-value expected investments of prospective concessionaires. These deliberate manipulations on the part of the OBC has created serious credibility deficit for the concession exercise”.
On the sharing formula of 40/60%, comrade Aba said, “the economics of the concession do not add up at all. While the profit sharing ratio is proposed to be 60:40 in favour of the Concessionaire, the disadvantaged FAAN is made to bear the repayment of the $1B loan utilized to build same terminals, continue to pay emoluments of its staff and pensioners, return 25% of its IGR to the FGN under the Fiscal Responsibility Act, and maintain the remaining eighteen airports in Nigeria. Unless through some abracadabra, there exists no possibility of FAAN meeting even a quarter of the above enumerated obligations under this obnoxious sharing formula”.
He vowed that, the unions would not soft pedal in its determined bid to keep the airports concession program of the federal Government under scrutiny and compel a review of same such that transparency, probity and equity are properly served.
“It is already well within the public domain that FAAN is riddled with numerous unresolved litigations bothering on the concession. Also, the plethora of unattended outstanding labour issues are now well documented and within public view. While the OBC erroneously claims the intricate legal web around FAAN is of no consequence, it did not at all mention the labour issues, regarding them also as inconsequential”.
