For two consecutive times, Nigeria has retained the United States Federal Aviation Administration (US FAA) Category One Safety rating won in 2010 without using of foreign consultants or call for additional budgetary funds.
Director General of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Captain Mukhtar Usman disclosed this in Lagos late Monday while handing over the safety rating certificate to the Minister of State, Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika.
Usman said the retention of the safety rating twice after the initial certification in 2010 has demonstrated the capacity of NCAA to implement corrective action.
The NCAA boss said that after the 2010 exercise, the certification was sustained in 2014 before the new retention when came up in 2017 without the use of foreign consultants which usually lead to incurring huge costs.
Usman said: “We are very excited over this safety rating for Nigeria. What is unique about this is that we used our in house capacity and did not borrow money from any agency. There was no extra budgetary provision. NCAA did all the corrective action.”
The feat, he noted has demonstrated the capacity of NCAA to fix critical regulation matters.
Speaking on the feat, Minister of State, Aviation, Hadi Sirika commended the NCAA team for upping the ante in civil aviation regulation without recourse to foreign assistance.
Elated Sirika said the certification has endorsed NCAA’s capacity in the discharge of its statutory responsibility.
“We will have to thank the NCAA team for this feat . It is enough evidence that NCAA is performing its role satisfactorily,” Sirika said.
