In this interview with Yemisi Izuora, former Director General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority(NCAA),Dr Harold Demuren faults the recent BASA agreement between Qatar and Nigeria
Excerpt
What are the economic benefits of BASA that government has with other countries?
Let me start with the latest BASA agreement between Nigeria and Qatar.
The Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) between the two countries I will say is good politics but bad economics.
Though it was good politics for the federal government to have signed BASA with the state of Qatar but it was bad economics because Qatar has an airline; Qatar Airways, which currently has seven frequencies into Nigeria and no Nigeria airlines fly to Doha.
Now that there is a BASA with Nigeria, the airline will demand for more frequencies and more entry points into the country.
Nigeria apart from not operating to Doha at the moment may not be able to reciprocate so it is clear the BASAs is already one sided.
Those countries Nigeria have BASA’s with no longer pay royalties for flying into the country so presently Nigeria airlines cannot compete with Qatar Airways in terms of equipment, personnel, maintenance and in other areas.
I am not saying that we should not sign BASA, what I am saying is that if we must sign BASA, we must know the content of the BASA we are signing.
In the past, international airlines that operate into the country based on the BASA’s paid royalties and that was how the government got some money in return for its investment but presently these are airlines no longer pay royalties.
This has denied the Federal Government returns for its money and Government ought to get something back as return for its investments.
A stranger cannot come to a country as matter of right, it’s a privilege, part of the privileges is the BASA agreement which is an agreement between two nations which allow you to enter each others country freely, but my take in this, is that it is a bilateral agreement between two nations, the two countries must benefit from it, it must not be one sided, right now because they are more advanced than us, it will not favour us, we have to develop ways of making money from this.
In the past, the system that was used was that they will ask the airline to sit with them not just the ministry, so the frequency will be shared between the two airlines not between the two countries.
Once you do that, it will be okay, but IATA doesn’t like it at all, they believe that it should be open sky, everybody should do whatever they want to do, but in doing that you have to make sure you are strong, you cannot be operating from a very weak side, at the end of the day , they come here, they do this and they take the money and there is nothing we can do.
But they are providing the services for us to travel, but we have to see how Nigeria can benefit from such things, for instance the travelling agents in Nigeria who sells their Tickets should increase the ticket tax to 10 percent and remit 5 percent back to government.
We have to look at something creative to see how we can make money on this for the government of Nigeria.
What is your take about National Carrier?
What I’ve said about national carrier is that we should not throw it up completely, but there is a condition and unless that is met, don’t even try it at all, and that condition we must have good corporate governance which we don’t have.
We can’t have political interference in a national airline, it’s going to collapse, it’s a commercial business it must be run professionally and in very transparent way, that is the way it is done.
Even the present domestic carriers, if they give them status of a national carrier, we still need to allow them to operate rightly.
NNPC to Nigeria is our source of income, Ethiopian airline is also the same for Ethiopia, so we have to look at it and we can make money from it provided we do it well.
If we don’t do it well, from beginning the project is dead. Also for a national carrier to succeed , it must have a first class maintenance facilities, must have a very sophisticated training facilities for simulators, for training the crew , for engineers, you must have all that in place, because that’s what takes money away. If you have all these then you can move.
Another thing is that you need a good technical partner, like Emirate, like Singapore airline, you need people like that who are small who are committed to invest, they will bring technology, they will bring money and expertise, that’s all you need to do, you cannot do it alone.
You know Nigeria market is a beautiful bride, one of the most lucrative markets people will want to get into, the people you are competing with are already very advanced and you are going in as an amateur.
It is like you want to win gold medal in 100 meters, and some people are in 8 seconds and you are in 12 seconds, it doesn’t match, so we cannot blame the airlines but they were not on the same level, so we need to get to that level, so that we can compete.