Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) on Thursday, debunked claims that the Airline operators of Nigeria (AON) have since November 1, 2013, stopped remitting their charges to Government Agencies.
In a statement, Mr. Yakubu Dati, coordinating general manager, Communications for Aviation Parastatals, described the news as “fictitious and misleading”, and berated Mr. Mohammed Tukur, the supposed spokesperson of AON, alleging that it was basically “the figment of the imagination of Mr. Tukur” to have spread the rumour.
Dati said: “Our attention has been drawn to a fictitious and misleading news release, authored by Mr. Mohammed Tukur, the supposed spokesperson of the Airlines Operators of Nigeria (AON), alleging that airlines under the aegis of the association would stop paying their charges to all aviation agencies, with effect from November 1, 2013 pending the review of such charges”.
According to Tukur, airline operators would stop remitting such charges to the affected agencies, as a result of obsolete infrastructure at Nigerian airports, epileptic navigation aids, lack of accountability in the utilisation of aviation taxes among other clearly malicious, ill-motivated and unfounded allegations.
“To show that the said release was only a figment of the imagination of Mr. Tukur, who currently does not work for any airline and therefore cannot rightly speak for Nigerian airlines, all the airlines in the country have continued to remit their charges accurately to the various aviation agencies, to date.
“To the best of our knowledge, all operational airlines in the country continue to maintain a cordial business relationship with all the aviation agencies providing them service because they know that the present administration has shown undeniable commitment to the development of the country’s aviation industry.
“We therefore wish to urge all well meaning aviation stakeholders and the general public to see the said release by Mr. Tukur as a hatchet job, designed to put a spanner in the works of Government’s transformation agenda in the aviation industry. It was an ill-motivated and false report, full of fury but signifying nothing, Dati added.