Stories by Ime Akpan Lagos
Th e Commissioner of Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), Mr. Akin Olateru has attributed the agency’s inability to publish over 35 air accident investigation reports and train its staff to lack of funds. Speaking in Lagos in the wake of the heat generated by the recent approval of fi ve per cent of the revenue accruing from passenger service charge (PSC) for the agency, Olateru also attributed AIB’s inability to release the reports on zero training of accident investigators since 2013. Olateru said the agency needed to develop human capacity to compete with the others hence its request to the Minister of State for Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika for 10 per cent of the revenue accruing from passenger service charge (PSC) warehoused 100 per cent by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).
He said the minister approved 5 per cent for the agency and wondered why a section of the aviation sector should raise a great hue and cry about the approval. Olateru who stressed that several projects were stalled because of paucity of funds said: “Anybody that says it is not fair for us to get a part of the PSC is not fare. Who owns the two agencies? It is the federal government. We all share the TSC and FAAN doesn’t share its PSC with anybody and the government in its wisdom says ‘FAAN, please give AIB 5 per cent.’
I don’t think that is too much. It is within the power of the minister to do that. “But one thing that is critical to us is that we have to work on the internally generated revenue (IGR). We need to build our capacities in accident investigation. Th ere are certain things we need to improve upon; there are processes that we need to review, there is public sensitisation that we need to do. “All these things cause money and this is what we have managed to put into the IGR side for 2017. We expect some reasonable money from the PSC to support us to deliver on some of our mandates. We still have to sit with FAAN to see how much this money is and what will the 5 per cent translate into,” he said.
Th e commissioner said the agency “only gets a meagre 3 per cent of the revenue from the 5 per cent ticket sales charge and the cargo sales charge (TSC/CSC) collected on behalf of the parastatals by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) while other agencies get more.” In accordance with the Civil Aviation Act 2006, Olateru said the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) gets 58 per cent, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), 23 per cent, Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), 7 per cent while the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) collects 9 per cent of the total sum.
