The Managing Director, Federal Airports
Authority of Nigeria, Mr. George Uriesi
The Federal Government has invested $870m in
airport infrastructure upgrade as part of efforts to improve services in all the
nation’s airports.
The Managing Director, Federal Airports Authority
of Nigeria, Mr. George Uriesi, made this known on Tuesday while presenting a
paper entitled: ‘Airport regulation from the Africa perspective’, at the Airport
Council International Conference and Exhibition in Lome, Togo.
A statement made available to our correspondent
on Wednesday by the agency stated that Uriesi said Nigeria was one of the six
nations in Africa currently infusing funds into infrastructure development and
improving the lot of airports in order to make them to be at par with their
counterparts worldwide.
As a result of the huge expenditure, the FAAN
boss said it might introduce a token developmental charge in order to have a
return on the investment once the projects were completed.
According to him, many countries are investing in
infrastructure and some do not have the passenger figures to gain return on the
investment.
Uriesi said that apart from Egypt and South
Africa that had over 30 million passengers annually, only eight other African
countries had a total passenger figure of above seven million.
He said that in the context of the 43 African
countries, only five had above 10 million passengers; three, seven million;
while eight of those countries had between one and two million passengers.
The FAAN boss noted that going by this, the
passenger traffic in Africa was not enough to provide the funds for airport
development
He further explained that this might have led
countries like Tunisia, Mozambique, Togo, Tanzania and Senegal to invest heavily
to ensure rapid development of their airports.
culled from Punch
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