The President and CEO of Sabre West Africa, Dr Gabriel Olowo, has faulted the status of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) as a turnaround manager of airlines in the country.
Dr Olowo, who also doubles as the President of Aviation Round Table Safety Initiative ( ART), said it was a misplaced judgment to put AMCON as a turnaround manager of an airline, stressing that the corporation was set up to collect debts of banks.
Olowo made his thoughts known while responding to questions about the aviation industry in Lagos recently. He said, “From day one, it was a misplaced judgment to put AMCON as a turnaround manager of an airline. AMCON was set up to collect debts of banks. If you are to collect debts, how can you turn the business around? If you have to collect debts in the US, that is Chapter 11 of Bankruptcy. I don’t know whether we have that in Nigeria, but if you are declared bankrupt, that means debt is set aside”.
“Bankruptcy does not mean that you are dead. It means that you set the debts aside. You are to pump in fresh funds and resuscitate the business. When the business comes back alive after some years, you can now begin to service these debts. That is what they call turnaround, but to ask AMCON to come and turnaround and at the same time, pay the airline debts, that is the consequence that you are seeing”.
Scoring AMCON low, in terms of changing the fortunes of the airlines under their receivership, Olowo noted, “They have not been able to deliver the airline of your dream, nor have they been able to sufficiently pay the banks’ debts. I flew on one of the airlines under AMCON receivership one day en-route to Ghana, but I won’t mention the name of the airline. Onboard, I was able to meet a senior official of AMCON and I asked if that was the standard they came here to deliver because I saw wires that can short-circuit and could cause fire breakout inside aircraft. That is safety measure and somebody is doing oversight on that airline”.
On the controversies trailing the issuance of Air Operator Cer¬tificate (AOC) to NG Eagle by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Olowo said the regulato¬ry agency was on the right track with the issuance of the certifi¬cate to the new owners.
According to him, since AM¬CON had decided to trade its right on the airline to another investor, NCAA could not stop the new owner from going ahead with the AOC processes.
Besides, Olowo rated the Presi¬dent Muhammadu Buhari’s eight years in aviation low, saying his administration scored just 40 per ¬cent. He pointed out that upon assuming office in 2015, the Federal Government through Sen. Hadi Sirika, the Minister of Aviation, had promised to deliver six road maps for the industry, but decried that most of the government’s programmes remained unclear eight years later.
“In the last eight years, the agenda set was very clear. What we did at Aviation Round Table (ART) is that we tried to measure their performance with indices of our breakfast meetings. We took topics on each of the six road maps, but we focused on about four of them. For instance, we did some things on the national carrier. We recommended options to the national carrier.
“We focused on airport con¬cession, hub creation and how to finance airport. We focused on maintenance facilities, training and manpower development, corporate governance. We shout¬ed on the appointment of board members for agencies, which is at the prerogative of the minister, according to the Acts setting up the agencies.
“By the time we appraised all the indices, we tried to tick any of our voices that were hearkened to, but regrettably, those voices went down into the drains. All the efforts of eight years, I think we scored the government about 40 percent performance. We ex¬pected government to have done at least 60 percent and leave the rest to politics.”
Speaking on the rising number of airports in the country, Dr Olowo queried the motive behind the proliferation of state owned airports in Nigeria, especially the haste to commission incomplete infrastructure calling on state governments to focus on other things and leave aviation be.
He stated that state governments building more under the guise of security landing is just a farce as the country already has good alternate airports for security landings.
Olowo, in his submission, said, “State airports are not necessary, maybe they are good politics, but they are bad economics. The only viable airport we have in Nigeria is MMA, which is feeding the rest, including Abuja. Go and check the books of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN). So, how can you start an airport in the name of security landing? There are good alternatives to all the airports in Nigeria right now that you can go within 10 to 15 minutes if you need an alternative. Must you start a new airport because of an alternative?
“If you are even building them for cargo purposes, the number one linkage for cargo is road and rail, which must be very efficient to deliver to the airport. Where are the rail and road that link Ilesha with Osogbo, Aye Coker and others? From the rail line, then it goes to the trucks and from there to the airport – intermodal connection. Can an airport operate in isolation? It is not possible”, he said.
“For whatever reason, the governments are trying to construct more airports. I think they have ulterior motives. The state governments should leave aviation alone. They should focus on other things. This is a sector you don’t joke with,”Olowo 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.
