We have only 11 ICAO certified engineers- FAAN

The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria on Thursday admitted that it has just 11 international Civil Aviation Organisation qualified engineers in its employ.

It however said this notwithstanding, it will not compromise standard in delivering excellent service in a departments that requires standards and aviation safety.

Reacting to the revelation by the House of Representatives' Committee on Aviation during its scheduled oversight function visit to the agency, Akin Olukunle, the general manager, public affairs for the airports authority on Thursday said the authority is faced with numerous challenges, stressing that the authority has the "major maintenance engineers".

"We (FAAN) are being confronted with a lot of challenges, but that does not mean that we totally lack adequate maintenance engineers," Mr. Olukunle said.

According to a report submitted by FAAN to the Aviation Committee, the FAAN had said it has only 11 engineers recognised by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, a United Nations agency responsible for setting and monitoring civil aviation standards and aviation safety.

"We are made to understand that you have a staff strength of over 4,445, out of which you have 300 engineering employees, and only 11 are qualified," said Niyi Jones, a lawmaker (Idanre Ifedore II Federal Constituency in Ondo State), the leader of the team that visited the authority's headquarters in Lagos during the assessment and facilities tour by the Aviation Committee last week.

During the tour Mr. Jones listed the respective departments being manned by the engineers, and disclosed that FAAN has only five qualified civil engineers, four qualified electrical engineers, and two qualified mechanical engineers out of the total 300 engineers on its payroll.

Commenting on the issue, Richard Aiseubeogun, managing director for the authority disclosed that the authority has important employees for the various departments in the airport.

"We have core personnel that handle specified positions," he said. "We moved over a hundred personnel for the fire training abroad and will do more to get the best in our employees."

The airports authority's boss disclosed that manpower training is given much importance, stressing that the authority has been involved in a series of personnel training to ensure safety in the industry.

"We recently conducted a successful simulator crises management exercise at the Lagos airport, and this multi approach simulator crises management exercise conducted recently clearly showed how competent our personnel is," he said.