May 22, (THEWILL) – The Aviation Safety Round Table Initiative (ASRTI), has said that the body would have rated the tenure of the outgoing minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, as a total failure, but for the fact that he did appoint capable and qualified individuals to run the various departments and agencies under him.
While assessing the last minute activities of the Minister, ASRTI pointed out that the actions of the Minister are capricious, despicable and unwarranted in the twilight of the Buhari administration.
ASRTI an aviation based Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), led by renowned aviator, Dr Gbenga Olowo, is seen as the foremost aviation watchdog in the country.
In an official statement issued Monday, signed by the General Secretary, Mr Olumide Ohunayo, the group stated that “ASRTI could have rated the tenure of the outgoing Minister a total failure but for the fact that he did appoint capable and qualified individuals to run the various departments and agencies under him.”
They, however, added that these astute professionals who the Minister worked with, discharged their duties creditably well in spite of the Ministerial bottlenecks placed on their paths.
Four solid years, the group pointed out the Minister of Aviation appropriated the required governance structure under his personal control by neglecting to appoint the statutory Governing Boards required to ease the functions of the agencies and parastatals under him.
The professional body equally lamented that such conduct regressed rather than grow the organisations, stressing that the Minister’s direct control resulted in transactional rather than functional operation of the agencies, thereby impeding their progress and his rating.
“The Minister through his micromanagement activities has further demonstrated the need to scrap the Ministry of Aviation and place the various departments with proper governance structures back in the Ministry of Transport, while granting independence to Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority under the appropriate internationally recognised structures for regulating the Nigerian aviation sector to achieve global best practices. Nigerian aviation requires strong institutions with solid processes and systems rather than strongmen.”
The ART equally frowned at any decision of the Minister to appoint a new Director General, Managing Directors or Directors with barely ten days to the eve of the new administration, thereby foreclosing the opportunity for new presidential appointees that will be more suited to the agenda of the incoming administration.
In addition, ART also picked holes in the change of name of the Federal Ministry of Aviation to that of the Federal Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace purportedly approved by the outgoing Federal Executive Council.
According to the group, they are well convinced that the annexation of the underfunded National Aerospace Research Development Agency (NASRDA) into the Ministry of Aviation would impede the appreciable progress so far made by NASRDA under its parent ministry – the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology.
“We further opine that the Centre for Space Transportation and Propulsion whose activities include the sustenance of rapid advances in the propulsion systems and rocket science should not be impeded by the Ministry of Aviation’s terrestrial operations.”
This deliberate attempt to muster the NASRDA under a Ministry that the Minister of Aviation is about to leave only creates organisational confusion for the incoming administration”, the statement added.
Anthony Awunor, is a business correspondent who holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Linguistics (UNILAG). He is also an alumnus of the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria Kaduna State. He lives in Lagos.
