The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has presented its income and expenditure accounts before the house Aviation Committee of the House of Representatives.
FAAN made the presentation on Tuesday while receiving members of the committee who were on oversight visit to the Lagos office of the Airport agency.
In his welcome speech at a brief meeting held in FAAN’s boardroom, Managing director and Chief Executive Officer of FAAN, Capt Rabiu Yadudu disclosed that even without any operating surplus, the agency was able to remmit N2 billion into the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) account between January and September, 2020
Yadudu who praised the visiting legislators for the given to the agency since the inception of the Assembly, also appealed to the committee to expedite action on legislations that will help the agency fastrack its operations across the country’s airports.
He said “FAAN does not have operating surplus. However, between January and September 2020, the Authority has remitted about N2 billion to the Consolidated Revenue Revenue Fund (CRF) account.
The Authority is also mindful of the National Assembly committees on Aviation in ensuring that FAAN is exempted from payment of operating surplus to the Federal government.
Exception of FAAN will guarantee that the revenue generated by the airports is transparently reinvested wholly in operating and developing airpot facilities in compliance with International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) standards and recommended practices on airport generated revenue,” he said.
According Yadudu, FAAN had as at September 30, 2020, generated a total of N30, 084, 235, 670, out of which N27, 967, 455, 341 was actual collected.
“From this amount, N17, 610, 732, 427 was from Aeronautical source of revenue, N5,776, 622, 874 from non-aeronautical sources and N5, 242,434,128 recovered from outstanding debts owed.
” From January to September 2020, the revenue target of Aeronautical source was N38, 988, 439, 354 and actual generation totalled N17, 823, 332,992 out of which N17, 610, 732, 478 is actual collection giving a percentage performance of 98.81 on revenue collected over generated.
“The Authority is shifting focus from Aeronautical sources of revenue to non-aeronautical, FAAN is presently operating at about 30 percent of its pre-COVID capacity.
He added, “the Authority has set up a revenue task force to aggressively drive revenue, follow up on outstanding debts owed and explore all possible investment opportunities.”
He therefore called on the lawmakers to give accelerated attention to the agency’s budget saying “The 2021 IGR budget was submitted to the committee for consideration, we believe that early consideration and passage will enable it to achieve better results in 2021.”
While he believed that Nigeria has the potential to be a hub in West/Central African sub-region, Yakubu reasoned that this can only be met through more funding for provision of modern infrastructure and technology, and the support of the committee members in the national Assembly.
The Chief Executive Officer of FAAN who also told the visiting legislators that the aviation agencies will urgently need intervention funds from the Federal government to address infrastructural gaps and position the industry for better service delivery and contribution to the national economy, added, “on this note, we seek your assistance in this area and the other aforementioned areas”
Yadudu who dispelled the allegation that FAAN staff are paid half salaries insisted that the workers are paid their full salaries based on availability of funds.
“Nobody receives half salary in FAAN, we always say half salary is no salary,” he concluded.
