Three apex aviation unions have written a petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to intervene in the lingering airport concession crisis between the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and one of its concessionaires, Maevis Nigeria Ltd. The unions are Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, National Union of Air Transport Employees and National Union of Pensioners. The national president, ATSSSAN, Mr. Benjamin Okewu, at a news conference in Lagos on Friday, said the move became necessary to save the aviation industry from imminent crisis. He was accompanied by the chairman, ATSSSAN, FAAN chapter, Mr. Elkanem Elkanem. The ATSSSAN leaders insisted that there was no going back on the revocation of the FAAN-Maevis contract. They called on the government to begin a new bidding process if she would reconsider the private sector management of the airport revenue system. On the interim, they said that FAAN officials would handle the system. The unions had, about two weeks ago, staged a two-day protest, which was aimed at shutting Maevis operations at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos. While claiming that FAAN had terminated its concession pact with Maevis, the unions alleged that the concessionaire was short-changing FAAN, a situation, they said, had made it difficult for the agency to pay its workers’ salaries. The unions’ protest was, however, disrupted by policemen, who insisted that Maevis was in possession of a court injunction restraining FAAN from terminating the agreement. Maevis had insisted that it was paying as and when due money collected on behalf of FAAN at the Lagos and Abuja airports. The firm said that it had continued to keep to the terms of the contract. On Thursday, Maevis said it had remitted N32.5bn to the coffers of the agency, adding that the shortfall of N8bn was debt owed by airlines. The Director of Finance, Ms. Bosede Owolabi, had denied that it was short-changing FAAN, stressing that the campaign against her company was not justified. The General Manager, Maevis, Mr. Wale Soneye, had said that the firm remitted over N1bn to the coffers of FAAN in May 2011. Also, he said that his firm had collected over N200m from the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja, last month. But the ATSSAN leaders faulted the firm’s argument. They claimed that certain indices showed that the firm had been short-changing FAAN. Specifically, Okewu said that before Maevis came onboard in 2007, FAAN was generating more than N1bn every month. He said, “We must take into cognisance that the exchange rate at that time in 2007 was about N127 to a dollar. The exchange rate now as we speak is about between N150 and N155 to a dollar. So you can put that together and see whether it was different from what FAAN was generating.” Okewu faulted the FAAN-Maevis agreement, which allowed the concessionaire to pocket 37 per cent from additional revenue it generates for FAAN.
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