NCAA, NAMA can operate under one umbrella – Capt. Sanusi

Amidst the unease over the planned implementation of the Steve Oransaye report on scrapping and merging of some agencies, the Chief Executive Officer of Aero Contractors, Capt. Ado Sanusi has said the regulators and the service providers in aviation can be merged.

The Oransaye’s report recommended the merger of three aviation agencies; the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMET) into a new body to be known as the Federal Civil Aviation Authority (FCAA) while amending their respective enabling laws to reflect the merger.

The NCAA is the apex regulatory authority in the industry. Already some stakeholders have rejected the proposed merger, saying it would cause confusion in the industry.

But Sanusi in a chat with Daily Trust said despite the recommendation of ICAO that the regulator should be separated from the service providers, they can actually exist under one umbrella as obtained in the United States.

The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) is a regulator, and they also operate air traffic control systems and they also regulate them. So it depends on the model they want to take but this is what ICAO recommends that you should isolate service provision from the regulator.

“I believe that NAMA, NIMET can come under one umbrella. NIMET should be under the Ministry of Environment because aviation uses a very minimal part of the metrological report that is needed in the country.

“We just need en-route weather and destination weather. We don’t need the amount of rainfall, drought, desertification, deforestation, erosion and all that, we don’t need those ones.

On the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Sanusi said the airports management agency should be privatized.