The Federal Government has engaged a private firm in Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) scheme in order to keep an appropriate record of helicopter movements in and out of Nigeria.
Mr. Stanley Chike, the Managing Director, Naebi Dynamic Services Limited informed journalists in Lagos that the firm was investing in multi-billionaire naira state-of-the-art equipment to monitor activities in the aviation and the oil sectors across the country.
He explained that the firm is investing in a multinational control room centre, radar equipment and navigational facilities to monitor the activities in the two sectors and beyond.
According to him, with this investment, the movement of low-level flying equipment like helicopters would be appropriately captured by the country, while the internally generated revenues for the government would also increase.
He explained that through its feasibility studies, no fewer than 200 helicopters are in operation in the country, while millions of naira would be saved in the country regularly.
He maintained that stakeholders in the aviation, oil and gas and security sectors were carried along in the new initiative and appealed to the International Oil Company (IOC) to cooperate with the firm to improve security and activities in the sector.
He also declared that the revenue generation of the deal was not novel as the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) recommended practices approved it, while it is also a law in Nigeria.
He emphasized that more employment would be generated for the country by the firm, while criminalities and criminal activities would be reduced as many youths would be taken off the streets.
He said: “Before we started, I noticed some lacunas in the system, we did a feasibility study and processed it and forwarded such to the government. After then, we had the stakeholder buy-in in the aviation and oil sectors. I want to thank the Federal Government for implementing this after the law has been passed.
“As we all know, aviation is a global practice and whatever is done in one country is replicated in the other, including Nigeria. The IOC will not pretend that they don’t know this is the practice that happens in their own countries, but we went further to ensure that after the ICAO law, it is also enshrined in our Act. So, it is a law nationally and globally. In other countries, helicopter operators are charged per weight, but here, we just have a common charge irrespective of the weight.
“Our job covers offshore and onshore and you will agree with me that we have over 200 heliports; we have more than 100 airstrips, oil rig platforms, aerodromes, FSPOs, helideck and co. with this, beyond Niger Delta.”
He stated that the company had trained and engaged over 200 men and women who would be deployed to the field in the next coming weeks, but noted that the consultancy would commence with Rivers State and extend to other states in the coming months.
According to him, the firm would build on the multilateration equipment of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) to enhance its surveillance of the industry, maintaining that Nigeria was too big to rely on just one piece of equipment for accuracy.
“However, you don’t have one system as an organisation. If you have just one system and anything happens to it, everything shuts down. Our country has moved to the stage where we should have alternatives. Multilateration is not a radar system. Radar is to capture machines.
“So, we are building ours to complement whatever they have and we are going to bring in a lot of equipment to do this. We are building data for the government. Also, with this, you know you have improved the system. We are doing manual and digital systems,” he said.
