The Federal Government has approved the sum of N13 billion for the automation of safety equipment at the Murtala Muhammed International airport Lagos, Aminu Kano International airport Kano, Nnamdi Azikiwe International airport Abuja and Port Harcourt International airport.
This is to assist in the transformation of the airports from their current analogue operations to full digital operations.
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This disclosure was made during a press briefing by the Minister for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, to State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on Wednesday.
Sirika said the approval was sequel to the presentation of a memorandum by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) for upgrading and refurbishing of control tower equipment at the airports.
He was optimistic that the safe tower projects, when completed, would increase efficiency and reduce the workload of air controllers in the affected airports. He also said that the development would enhance the speedy and automatic display of collected data from the runway about weather, wind, rain, macroburst amongst others, on the control tower platform.
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Sirika said, “Today, Civil Aviation submitted a memorandum to the council which was consequently approved. The memo is to upgrade and refurbish the safe tower equipment in four airports, Lagos, Kano, Abuja and Port Harcourt. This is just to increase the efficiency of the airports and reduce the workload in the control tower and to automate what was hitherto analogue system to digital.
“Quick example is all of the data we collect at the end of the runways within the airports will now be displayed instantly on our platform in the control tower. Information regarding weather, regarding all of the components of weather, winds, rain, macroburst etc will be displayed automatically.
“So, the issue of giving out weather reports every hourly will change to give you instant weather which will improve the pilot efficiency and the workload on the controller is reduced and it can handle more flights into the airport. The total contract sum is N13.122, 230, 999.17.’’
Going further, the Aviation Minister explained that the payment of the contract sum would be in 2 parts.
He said, “First component which is a foreign component is €28,489,565 million while the naira component is N3.491,504,488.31. Of course, there will be 7.5 per cent added VAT. It will be for the completion period of 12 months.’’
