Key highlights
- Aviation expert, Olumide Ohunaya, spoke to Nairametrics about some of the factors delaying an MRO launch in Nigeria.
- The factors range from FG’s rigidity to give approval and an alleged conflict of interest.
- Nigeria’s continued lack of an MRO facility is responsible for huge losses by airlines.
- MRO is an acronym for Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul for airplanes.
The Federal Government’s rigidity to give an approval is responsible for the continued delay in the launch of a major Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility in Nigeria, more than seven years after the idea was conceived.
This was disclosed by Mr Olumide Ohunaya, the Head of Research and Corporate Travel at Zenith Consult and Travels, during an interview with Nairametrics in Lagos.
He further claimed that the government, through the Ministry of Aviation, had failed to remove its hand completely from the project.
More on this: According to Ohunayo, there is a conflict between the Ministry and the Civil Aviation Act, which put some regulatory functions in the hands of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).
He declared that until this was resolved, prospective investors would continue to overlook investments in the sector and take businesses out of the country to neighbouring states.
Ohunayo further stated that rather than the government creating an enabling environment for investors, it was competing with private organisations and called for a review of the policy. He said:
- “For me, what led to the failure of the MRO project by the government is the penchant of the Federal Government to continue to see it as an exclusive project and wanting to participate in it and invest in it.
- “Once you are competing, there is every tendency for you to sacrifice objectivity, just as it has happened with the Nigeria Air project where the government gave some investors 15 years moratorium taxes and they will now sell tickets in the domestic market without paying taxes.
- “I think it is necessary for the government to make clear policies and let the investors do the business. If the government removes its hand and we don’t have to seek the approval of the minister before we set up an MRO, we will not be having this delay.
- “It is that rigid approval that is causing the delay and I think it is high time we looked at the Civil Aviation Act and work on it. When you look at it, you will find out that there are some functions there given to the ministry and are already responsibilities of the Civil Aviation Authority. Having that duplication has caused an unnecessary delay for the project and other projects too in the sector.”
Billions lost annually: Ohunayo regretted that the industry was losing billions of dollars annually to the absence of the facility in the country. The airlines incur the costs because they have to ferry their aircraft for major checks outside the country.
Asides from the loss incurred by the airlines, the Nigerian government also loses in the form of foreign exchange flight, zero taxes to government agencies, and lack of manpower development and employment generation.
- “For those looking at a technical stop when doing flyover and want to do technical stop base on the maintenance in the country, I think we are also losing a huge sum of money and this could run into billions of dollars if you put the entire value chain together.
- “We need to consider the taxes that would be paid to the agencies and other sectors of the country, the Nigerians that would be employed, infrastructure that would have been developed in manpower from the scratch, the machinery that would be brought in and built upon, we are looking at billions of dollars that would have increased our country’s GDP.”
Note that to carry out C-check on Boeing 737 aircraft or its category, airlines expend at least $1.8 million. The C-check is carried out on aircraft every 18 months.
