The Federal Government may spend over N26bn to build new control towers and fire stations at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos and the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja.
This is because the two new international airport terminals being built directly beside the Lagos and the Abuja airports are wrongly sited, the Minister of State for Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, has said.
The construction of the terminals in question was started by the former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, after the government secured a $500m loan at a concessionary rate of 2.5 per cent interest from the Chinese government for the construction of four new international airport terminals in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano.
The Abuja terminal is said to be obstructing access to the runway from the control tower. There are also problems with the location of the new terminal in Lagos.
As such, the minister said recently that the Federal Government was considering demolishing the two multibillion-naira international airport terminals in Lagos and Abuja or pulling down and relocating the control towers and fire service stations in order to ensure efficient operations at the airports.
He estimated that a new control tower and fire service station in Lagos would gulp at least N5bn.
According to the minister, it would cost the Federal Government N3bn to build a new control tower and N2bn to build a new fire service station.
“The Chinese terminal project is a loan of $500m from China and $100m counterpart funding from Nigeria. The Abuja and the Lagos terminals that are nearing completion are blocking the control tower, fire service station and sitting on heavy cables,” he said.
Officials of Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and the aviation ministry, which is an arm of the Federal Ministry of Transportation, said the wrong location of the new terminal currently under construction at the NAIA, Abuja would make the Federal Government spend about $70m (N21.4bn) to relocate other structures at the facility to ensure efficient operations.
FAAN and the aviation ministry officials told one of our correspondents that the cost of moving the fire station alone at the Abuja airport was about $30m, while the government would have to spend another $40m to relocate the control tower. This will amount to over N26bn for the two airports.
They noted that Sirika had hinted that the government would go ahead with the relocation of the structures in order to ensure seamless operations between the control tower and the runway.
The spokesperson for the NAIA, Mrs. Henrietta Yakubu, told one of our correspondents that the terminal at the Abuja airport would not be brought down but some other structures at the facility would have to give way.
She said, “The minister said the fire service bay and the control tower will be relocated. This is because based on the way the terminal building is positioned; the control tower doesn’t have access to the runway. So an alternative measure has to be looked into.
“But he said bringing down the terminal will cost more, rather it will be cheaper to bring down the fire service bay and the control tower. So that is what they intend to do. Actually, the terminal is wrongly sited but it won’t be brought down.”
On the cost implication, the Deputy Director, Press and Public Affairs, Mr. James Odaudu, in an email to one of our correspondents, quoted Sirika to have stated that the terminal “in Abuja will have to move as it is blocking the control tower and the fire station. The same story in Lagos too.”
Sirika also confirmed that the government would spend nothing less than $30m to move the fire station and another $40m to move the control tower, adding that this was not economical.
Although Sirika did not disclose the real reasons for relocating the control towers and the fire stations, he said the airport’s terminal was wrongly sited. Investigations by our correspondents revealed that the need to guarantee the security of the nation’s President was responsible for constructing the new international terminal at Abuja in a wrong location.
A similar mistake, top airport officials revealed, was made in Lagos because the FAAN could not construct the airport at the right location due to an 18-year-old concession agreement it had with AIC Limited.
FAAN, had in 1998, leased a portion of the land at MMIA to AIC Limited for the construction of an international hotel.
A top official of FAAN, who is privy to the situation, said, “At the Abuja airport, the section of the land the new terminal could have been built on is close to the Presidential wing. Building it there would have been tantamount to a security breach against the President. This is why it was wrongly sited.
“For the Lagos airport, the place the new terminal was meant to be sited had been given on concession to AIC Limited for the construction of an international hotel. We tried to reclaim the land but Chief Harry Akande, the owner of AIC, had a valid court judgement against FAAN on the matter. Eventually, we had to build the terminal in another section that was not meant for such expansion purpose going by the airport’s master plan.”
President, Aviation Safety Round Table Initiative, Mr. Gbenga Olowo, described the situation as “a gross national embarrassment” capable of eroding investor confidence in the country, saying those responsible for it must be punished.
“This is definitely unfortunate and it is a real shame. It confirms the error of secrecy in decision- making by the government. It confirms policy summersault and inconsistency in long-term planning. It confirms political manoeuvring over professional and institutional endeavours.
“What happened to the master plans of those airports? People in government or currently outside of it, who deviated from the plans should be brought to answer the questions and made to pay for the remedies,” he said.
Blaming the problem on the exclusion of professionals from government policies, Olowo said, “To avoid this (situation) in future, we need a very strong Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority and Department of Aviation at the Ministry of Transportation.
“The civil servants at the aviation ministry who translate political interests into policies are the real problem. Decisions and policies are formulated by non-professionals, hatched in secrecy with no inputs from stakeholders and when there are stakeholders, they are a mere rubber stamp.”
A former military commandant, MMIA and Chief Executive Officer, Centurion Safety and Security Consult, Group Captain John Ojikutu, also blamed the problem on NCAA’s weakness to enforce regulations.
“Normally, no construction or reconstruction should be done at the airport without the approval of the NCAA. It must approve any plan, design or redesign. So the question is: was NCAA consulted? What was the provision? But NCAA is also under pressure, so it can’t talk to politically exposed people,” he said.
SOURCE.. PUNCH
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