The Federal Ministry of Aviation on Tuesday received a record four certificates of compliance or Outline Business Case (OBC) certificates on the impending concession of four international airports, bringing to seven the OBC certificates received by the ministry.
The Ministry had previously received the OBC on the national carrier, the Aviation Leasing Company and the Maintenance Repairs Overhaul facility (MRO).
All facilities are at various levels of procurement. Presenting the certificates on Tuesday to the Aviation Minister, Sen. Hadi Sirika, the Director-General, Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) Mr. Chidi Izuwah (Engr.) said with the certificates, the ministry can go ahead to source for private investors for the terminals.
The airports that got the OBC include: The Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja, the Mallam Aminu International Airport, Kano, the Port Harcourt International Airport and the Murtala Muhammad International Airport, Lagos.
Mr. Izuwah said the OBCs shows that facilities are bankable and the private sector can invest in them. After the OBC, the next phase is the procurement stage and the Final Business Case (FBC) which will still be approved by the Federal Executive Council and the ICRC.
He also said “the execution of this project is meant to help Nigeria to reach its objective in terms of air transport value chain growth by developing and profitably managing customer centric airport facilities for safe, secure and efficient carriage of passengers and goods at world-class standards of quality.”
“The Airports in Nigeria have huge potentials but are currently operating at a suboptimal level due to factors that will have to be improved under the PPP programme.
“The factors include: the urgent need for infrastructure investments and modernisation (runway maintenance, navigation aids as well as terminal facilities), relatively low asset utilisation due to the limited opening hours of some airports, lack of terminal capacity at the airports due to inadequate gates, stands and check-in desks and design deficiency to operate as international hubs resulting in separate international and domestic terminals.“
The ICRC DG also said the Outline Business Case (OBC) Report for the OBC for the concession of the Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano airport terminals under PPP arrangements was transmitted to the Commission on 1st June, 2020 for certification.
Commenting, Sen. Sirika said the airports concession programme is part of the Aviation Road Map that was previously approved by President Muhammadu Buhari, adding that when the process is completed, at least 241,700 direct jobs will be created and hundreds of thousands of indirect jobs down the value chain.
“Critical to the roadmap are the airports’ terminal concession. More than 80 percent of the roadmap is through public private partnership (PPP) and the ICRC has the sole mandate to regulate to ensure viability, fairness and diligence” he explained.