By Ime Akpan
Lagos
The supervising minister of aviation, Dr. Samuel Ortom has said that the ministry would not embark on new projects at the airports but ensure that the ongoing ones were completed.
Speaking yesterday in Lagos during a tour of projects at the general aviation terminal and the international wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport,
Ortom said some projects were recently suspended due to paucity of funds.
However, he said work had resumed at the construction sites since the federal government signed the 2014 budget into law.
“We have to prioritise our work here; we have been operating with the internally generated revenue and we will continue to operate with it. We have done a lot. In the cause of inspection, we have identified some work we have to tidy up. We intend not to go on any new project until we tidy up these ones.
“None of the ongoing projects in the sector would be abandoned, contrary to speculations that the ministry of aviation would abandon the projects scattered across airports in the country most especially when about N174 billion has been spent on them,” he said.
He said some of the projects initiated by the former minister were 70 to 80 per cent completed.
Earlier, the assistant general manager in the fire service department of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mr. Rindams Domtur, had complained that there was acute shortage of firefighters following the resignation of 200 of them last December.
He said FAAN has 600 fire staff across the country’s airports and that it would require 1,500 personnel for effective performance.
Domtur added that a Category 9 facility like the Murtala Muhammed Airport Lagos has 160 fire personnel, which, according to him, “is far below what the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) approves for such airport category.”
