National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) yesterday lauded the federal government’s decision to sack and demote 22 top officials of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).
NUATE’s General Secretary, Olayinka Abioye, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the restructuring should be extended to other aviation agencies.
As part of the federal government’s plan to restructure the aviation sector, some general managers and deputy general managers of parastatal in the sector were demoted.
Some managers formerly placed on Level 17 were in a letter issued by the Federal Ministry of Transport demoted to Level 10 and redeployed to other departments in the same organisation.
The restructuring followed the recommendations of the Presidential Committee chaired by the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Winifred Oyo-Ita.
Abioye said: “We have written several letters to the government about it, and it was part of our demands. We want it to be carried out in all the aviation parastatal agencies.
“We also believe that there should be less interference in the running of these agencies. The exercise that was carried out in FAAN on Wednesday ought not to have happened in the first instance, if we have done our work properly.
“What usually happens is that political patronage took precedence over public service rules and regulations.
“You can imagine a young graduate of 10 years, who was appointed a general manager, which will take a career public servant 26 years to get to.”
According to him, these agencies should be allowed to work within the purview of the acts that established them for the betterment of the industry, and the country in general.
Abioye also called for a stakeholders’ meeting where each of the parastatal would put forward the challenges limiting them from engaging in quality service delivery.
