- Prof. Sanni
As airlines and other stakeholders in the aviation industry continues to groan at the skyrocketing charges in the sector, a University Lecturer and Head of Department of Commercial and Industrial Law, University of Lagos, Prof. Abiola Sanni has stated that one of the factors responsible for exorbitant charges in the industry is the proliferation of government agencies with overlapping functions.
He also mentioned the abuse of regulatory power for revenue purposes by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government as one of the factors.
He stated this while presenting a paper titled, “Nigerian Aviation Sector Charges, Duties & Tariffs: Truly Exorbitant? at Breakfast Meeting organised by the Aviation Safety Round Table Initiative (ASRTI), popularly known as Aviation Round Table (ART) by industry stakeholders.
Other factors, Sanni said includes: inordinate revenue drive by government agencies to meet revenue targets, lack of an effective coordination of charges by MDAs, outsourcing of revenue collection by MDAs to private revenue agents and lack of sufficient government support for the growth of the sector.
He recommended that Aviation Safety Roundtable Initiative ASRTI (ART) network should undertake data analysis on the difference in charges in Nigeria and other countries, adding that picture speaks more than a thousand words.
He also recommended the adoption of a holistic approach to include other charges by other agencies and also have a well-articulated position paper ready.
He also recommended that Nigeria continue to leverage on the ongoing reform agenda and also harmonisation and consolidation of charges, where possible.
Sanni hinted that there is a 25-page document titled, “NCAA Fees & Charges” containing 456 different items under the following broad categories:
* Air Transport License
* Renewal/Processing Fee of License/Permit
* Annual Utilisation Fee for License/Permit
* Registration of Allied Services (Agents)
* Renewal of Registration of Allied Services (Agents)
* Other ATR Charges
* Security, aerodrome or airspace standards
* Certification/Operations, Licensing and Training Standards and Renewals.
* Registration of aircraft mortgage/lease etc.
The document, he said, ended with “A charge for any approval or service not mentioned above will depend on the nature of approval or service required”.
He however advised that future conversations should bear in mind that taxes and charges are different concepts and that Nigerian culture of conflating charges with taxes is counterproductive hence the need to disaggregate them.
Every agency of government he posited should have a comprehensive list of its charges the way the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has done for certainty and engagement by stakeholders.
He stressed that it is imperative for there to be proper regulation and coordination of charges by MDAs to prevent abuse of regulatory power for revenue purposes, adding that there is need for proper budgeting and financings of MDAs, in this case NCAA.
Nigeria, he said, should ensure that there is only one single revenue agency per level of government for MDAs to focus on their core objective.
The inability or failure of the government to successfully run a national airline, Sanni said, should give it a better understanding of the challenges in the aviation sector.
He called on the Federal Government to develop a robust roadmap for the sustainable growth of the aviation sector.
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