Fresh controversy trails N400b shortfall in aviation revenue

Capt. Muhtar Usman

A fresh controversy has emerged over the total number of passengers that travelled the Nigerian airspace and ticket fares generated in 2016 and 2017, especially the harmonised figures recently released by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).

The apex regulatory body disclosed 15 million international and local passengers in 2016, with a total of N422.4 billion in ticket sales.

2017 recorded 14.1 million passengers, with N505 billion in ticket sales.

Stakeholders, however, faulted the new revenue estimates, alleging a shortfall in excess of N400 billion in the two years under review, with attendant shortchange of the mandatory five per cent charges that go to five regulatory agencies from ticket sales.

The stakeholders, who blamed under-disclosure of earnings as one of the reasons for the poor funding of the critical agencies, urged the Minister of State for Aviation, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and the National Assembly Aviation Committees to separately set up investigation panels to look into the issues.

By statutes in the Nigerian Civil Aviation Acts (CAA) 2006, the NCAA is tasked in part 12 (1) to collect, on behalf of itself and four aviation agencies, five per cent charges on all airlines passengers’ ticket sales, air chartered services charges, cargo freight charges and so on.

The collection is for the security of infrastructural systems, and services and human capital development of related operations in the aviation sector.

The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), for instance, gets 23 per cent of the five per cent collection; Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) gets three per cent; Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) is allotted seven per cent; and the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) shares nine per cent. The rest is allocated to NCAA.

In the wake of the furore that greeted the discrepancies between the NCAA’s estimates and those of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)/Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) for 2017, the NCAA came up with harmonised figures.These were presented by the Director of NCAA’s Consumers Protection Unit, Dr. Adamu Abdullahi, at a breakfast meeting, organised by the Aviation Safety Round Table Initiative in Lagos.

According to Abdullahi, a total of 10.7 million local and 4.3 million international passengers were recorded in 2016, while 2017 pooled a total of 10.1 million local and four million international passengers.

Consequently, local routes earned N79.5 billion, while international routes earned N343 billion in 2016.

For 2017, it was N93.6 billion for local and N411.6 billion for international ticket sales. Year 2016 earned a total of N422.4 billion in ticket sales, while 2017 recorded N505 billion.

Stakeholders are worried that the revenue estimates did not match the average cost of tickets when multiplied by the traffic disclosed.

There is also a shortfall when compared with figures disclosed by both the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the National Association of Nigerian Air Travel Agencies (NANTA).

From the 2017 figures, for instance, if each of the two million international outbound passengers pay an average of N350,000, that would amount to N700 billion in ticket sales, compared to NCAA’s N411.6 billion, ditto for local passengers.

If each of the five million outbound passengers pay an average of N18,000 per ticket, that would amount to N90 billion in ticket sales.