Court restrains NCAA, ministry over airport terminal charges

[TGD]

 Ministry approved new charges, says Bi-Courtney

A LAGOS High Court has restrained the Ministry of Aviation and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) from stopping Bi-Courtney, the builder and operator of the new domestic terminal known as Murtala Muhammed Airport 2 (MMA2).

This came as Bi-Courtney has notified the Senate over alleged difficulties put on its path by the Ministry of Aviation, which claimed that it never approved any rise in passenger service charge.

The terminal operator is embroiled in a controversy generated by its increase of passenger service charge from N1,000 to N2,000, an increment the ministry denied authorising.

The first attempt earlier this month to raise the charge was shot down by the Minister of Aviation, Mrs. Stella Oduah-Ogiewonyi.

In a letter dated November 3, 2011 to Chairman, Senate Committee on Aviation, Hope Uzodinma and signed by one Kabir Akanbi, the firm stated: "We are constrained to bring to your notice the actions of the Ministry of Aviation in respect of our processing charges.

"Sir, when our terminal was conceived as a project, we sought and obtained approval from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and the Ministry of Aviation to charge N600 and $15 (N3,000), as airport tax and maintenance fee. The approvals were obtained between December 2006 and February 2007.

Akanbi further disclosed that in July 2011, the company started charging N2,500 per ticket, stressing that it received the full co-operation of the airlines to adjust to the new tariff.

He noted that surprisingly, however, a few weeks later, "we received a letter from the Ministry of Aviation on July 28, 2011" stating that Bi-Courtney had not been given the approval to increase the charges.

Showing The Guardian copy of the approvals the firm got in 2007 from the same Ministry of Aviation and FAAN to raise the charges because of the services rendered in the terminal, Akanbi wondered what type of approval would the firm need again to implement the charges.

Bi-Courtney had equally sought an order of interim injunction restraining the defendants/respondents jointly and severally including their agents/agencies and/or contractors, from further interfering with, or disrupting or impeding the Plaintiff/Applicant's operations at the MMA2 as it relates to the charging and collection of tariffs, rents, fee and other charges collectible from users of the MMA 2, Lagos, pending the hearing and determination of the Plaintiff/Applicant's Motion on Notice for interlocutory injunction filed in this suit.

The firm also got and order suspending the effect of the second defendant's letter dated July 28, 2011 with reference number CA/A.239/M/10) and 4th defendant's letter dated July 14, 2011 with reference number NCAA/ATR167/C8/11/161, pending the hearing and determination of the Plaintiff-Applicant's Motion on Notice for interlocutory injunction filed in this suit.

Akanbi disclosed that the aviation firm wrote to the Ministry on August 2, 2011, expressing, "our utmost shock at the development."

In the letter, he said: "We explained thoroughly that we had the requisite approval and came to the conclusion that the Minister was possibly wrongly advised by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority."

He lamented that three months since the company wrote the Ministry of Aviation, it has not received a response to its letter.

Akanbi said his company found the delay difficult to reconcile with the role of the Ministry as the supervising authority of such an important government function.

He told The Guardian that the going rate for regional operations then was $35, just as he asked the ministry to make available where it was documented that the $15 was for regional operations.

He explained that the huge cost of maintenance at the new terminal made the new rate necessary, stressing that MMA2 collected the same charges of N1,000 with the old, decrepit domestic terminal christened General Aviation Terminal (GAT), a situation he described as "unfair."

 



The Guardian