Captain Chris Njomo, AgDGCA
The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has decided not to renew certificates for airline operators with outstanding debts, amounting to billions of naira and dollars.
The Acting Director General, Captain Chris Najomo, revealed this during the introduction of his 2024 project for the aviation industry.
To continue operations, domestic airline operators must now settle all outstanding debts before renewing their Air Operators certificates, AOC.
The debts primarily stem from the 5% statutory ticket sales charge and cargo sales charge (TSC/CSC) collected by operators on behalf of the regulatory agency but not remitted.
Captain Chris Njomo emphasized that, moving forward, debtors will no longer receive services from the Authority.
“There shall be ‘operation no pay, no service’ and there will be strict sanctions for defaulting operators”.
As of 2022, the accumulated debt profile of domestic airlines was N19 billion and $7.8 million.
Captain Njomo highlighted the agency’s role as a cost recovery entity and emphasized the importance of sustaining its statutory responsibility for overseeing and promoting industry safety records.
He noted that, the agency cannot perform its duties optimally with the money needed in the hands of operators coupled with having to remit the mandatory 50% of these monies into the Treasury Single Account.
“We are intensifying our cost recovery drive; the federal government now takes 50 per cent of the money. Most of the airlines are owing us, we have told them to pay up. A debt recovery joint task force shall be mandated to implement the cost recovery drive”.
The ADGCA also disclosed, plans are in progress to crack down on private jet operators acting as commercial charter operators, with the threat of license revocation for those caught in violation.
Captain Najomo promised in his NCAA project 2024 to enhance surveillance, intensify consumer protect, revenue drive, simplify certification and licensing processes, ISO 9001 certification amongst others.