By Chinelo Obogo
More details have emerged on how the five billion naira COVID19 bailout funds released by the Federal Government was disbursed to the aviation industry.
However, the disbursement of the funds have become a source of discord within the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) as some airlines which claim to have valid Air operators Certificate (AOC) are alleging that they have been sidelined in the disbursement despite meticulously following the process and submitting their request for the funds.
The Federal government had agreed on palliatives to cushion the effects of the industry being one of the worse hit but on the condition that airlines need to have a functional AOC.
However, some operators are accusing the leadership of the AON of hijacking the process with the 70-30 sharing formula. An operator who didn’t want to be named said the AON Board of Trustees (BOT) and the executive had disagreed over the sharing of N3 billion to some scheduled operators out of the N4 billion released, saying most charter operators including who have valid AOC are yet to get anything from the funds. Daily Sun gathered that non charter airlines like Arik, Air Peace, Aero Contractor, Azman, Dana and Max Air benefited from the disbursement. But an industry insider who is privy to the negotiations disputed this. The insider told Daily Sun that the disbursement was transparently done by the committee that handled the negotiations which was made up of top executives from all the federal government agencies and was headed by the Director General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Captain Muha Nuhu not the AON.
“The actual amount that was disbursed was five billion naira. Four billion was given to airlines and one billion was given to catering companies, fuel marketers and ground handlers. When you come to the airlines, they are divided into two; the scheduled and chartered operators. The scheduled operators were given 70 percent of the N4bn, while the chartered operators got 30 percent of that amount.
“The purpose of the money is to enable airlines pay their workers henceforth, not to pay arrears. So, when the number of staff was calculated, it showed that chartered operators have a work force of 2000, while scheduled operators have over 6000 personnel. The disbursement was transparently done.”
