By Chinelo Obogo
Director General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Capt. Musa Nuhu, has revealed that even though the agency has very experienced pilots with minimum of 4,000 flying hours, the pay is poor when compared to what the industry is paying.
In an interview with aviation reporters in Lagos, . Nuhu, who was responding to the letter by the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) to the Senate, calling on the Federal Government to remove the NCAA from the civil service structure to enable the agency attract the right personnel in order to safeguard the aviation industry, said because of the poor pay, people will rather go and work in the industry as a captain and earn more instead of being paid less than N1 million at the agency.
“NCAA is a government agency and not an independent body; we operate under public service rules and government salary structure. We have very experienced pilots with minimum of 4,000 flying hours, which is the recommendation to be a flying instructor. But our pay is poor when compared to what the industry is paying. Our pay within the civil service structure seems to be great, but if you compare that to the closest we need from the industry, our pay is poor. So, people will rather go and work in the industry as a captain, earn some millions of naira, than to come here and earn less than N1 million.
“If I can work somewhere and get triple of my monthly salaries for less work, why will I go and work somewhere else? The only people that come to work for NCAA as flight operation inspectors are people who have retired from flying. People who have attained the age of 65 years or more and we employ them on special contracts and even as a special contract staff, when you get to 70 years of age, you are supposed to leave.
“If you employ someone who is 65 years old, it takes you about 18 months to two years to train him and by the time he’s going to function as a full inspector, he has three years to go. He has to go by age 70. This is not a very efficient system. We need to find a right balance within the senior inspectors and the younger ones so that we do not have this every four years disruption where we have to start looking for inspectors. It is very disruptive and it is not the most efficient use of resources. We certainly need the elderly people for their experience, but we need to strike the right balance.
“We need to get people who can be employed as regular staff, people who are under 50 years old and can come out to work and by the time they retire at the mandatory age of 60, we can still engage them as contract staff for another 10 years. So, you will have people who can work with you for 20 years and this promotes stability in the system.
“According to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) documents 9737, we are supposed to be a competitive employer, but because we are under the civil service rule, which we must comply with, I cannot compete with the airlines in the hiring of staff. When the aviation safety inspectors come out of school, we employ them, train them, they are here for six years and when they are about to become very productive for the system, the private sector comes and attract them with better salaries and take them away.
“We need to find a way of balancing this so that the system gets enough technical personnel to function. We are, however, working on the government to see how things can be addressed. There is a limit we can pay, so we are working with the ministry through the Minister of Aviation, Head of Service and salaries and wages commission to see how we can address this.
“On AON letter, they came in and complained that some of their services are delayed and we explained to them that we do not have enough inspectors because they have a lot of work to do. So, we have to prioritise the system. But if we have more hands, the work will be quite faster. I understand the concerns of the airlines; they invested money and they don’t want delays, i you delay them, they are losing money,” Nuhu said.
On the recertification of Lagos and Abuja Airports and the certification of Kano, Port Harcourt and Enugu Airport, Nuhu said the recertification of Lagos and Abuja airports is ongoing and that technical inspections took place last year to reconfirm the gaps there and action plans are being developed.
“For certification and recertification of airports, technical inspections took place last year to reconfirm the gaps there and action plans are being developed. Once they are developed and submitted to the NCAA, we will review them and those that are okay, we will go ahead with it and for those that are not okay, we will return them with comments and what is needed to be done.
“Recertification of Lagos and Abuja airports is ongoing but there are a few issues we need to close which FAAN is working on. Every two weeks, we do have high level meetings at the NCAA through the Department of Aerodrome and Airspace, they meet and device a mean of resolving the issues. Hopefully, we can get all our international airports certified before the audit,” he said.