Airport authority faulted on revenue spending

The House of Representative Committee on Aviation, on Wednesday, condemned the report of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria on the spending of its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). The committee described it as "worrisome."

The committee disclosed this at the airports authority's headquarters in Lagos, while carrying out its routine oversight function on the various agencies and parastatals in the ministry of aviation. "An overview of your report does not give our tax payers good return on their investments," said Daniel Reyemieju, a member of the committee representing Warri Federal Constituency.

Commenting on the shortages in the total amount that is expected to be generated internally by the authority, the committee regretted why the airport authority could not meet its target and requested for clarity. "It's worrying that your report does not show that you are unable to meet your target for the months of January to May," said Muhammed Sani, deputy chairman for the committee. Mr. Sani regretted why the authority could not give a thorough explanation on the reason their budgeted IGR dropped by over ₦300 million.

"At the last count, we found that you (FAAN) are almost always having a gap of ₦300 million or so," he said. "This is never impressive and we want justifiable reasons." FAAN's response Commenting on the development, the managing director of the airports authority, Richard Aisuebeogun, disclosed that a number of projects are being funded with the internally generated revenue.

"There are a number of IGR projects that are on-going," he said. "We shall endeavour to make our reports clear." Presenting the report, Mr. Aisuebeogun disclosed that it was able to generate a total of ₦9,481,124,060.68 from January to May, 2009, which is in contrast to its expected budget for the internally generated revenue of N9,945,524,591.90 for the same period. "Ideally, what we should be collecting on a monthly basis should be ₦1,989,104,918.38.

If you multiply that by five, between January and May, it will come to ₦9,945,524,591.90, and when compared to the actual the amount collected, you will see the difference," he said. Meanwhile, the committee disclosed that it will re-visit the concession agreement between thr airport authority and the Bi-Courtney, operators of Murtala Mohammed Airport 2. "To me, the MMA2 issue is not closed, although it may be closed to Bi-Courtney," said Mr. Sani.

"The house is going to re-open the case and shall invite each party to come with their original documents as each of them claim to posses." There have been tussles between the aiport authority and the operators of MMA2 as to the number of years that Bi-Courtney is expected to run the domestic airport. "We want to know the truth, and by God's grace that is what we are going to get at the end of our investigations," he said.