Budget Minister lauds FAAN over improved MMIA arrival hall

The Minister of State, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed on Tuesday expressed satisfaction with the state of the arrival hall of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, (MMIA), Lagos, commending Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) for a job well done.

Ahmed made the remark today at the airport in Lagos during her one-day tour of the airport facilities.

According to the Minister, there has been an upgrade that shows an improvement in passengers’ experience, especially on the arrival hall of the MMIA.

On the essence of the tour, Mrs Ahmed said the reason why they were at the airport was to inspect the projects under the FAAN.

“The reason why we are here is to inspect the projects under FAAN. The essence of this is to see how well government’s resources are utilized. To also see and understand the challenges that the airport is facing so that when resources are to be allocated or disbursed, we will do it with the understanding of how they are to be used”, the minister said.

She noted that her team will be writing a report and indicate what they have observed and also share the report with the authority for them to see what has been recorded as a result of the visit.

On the level of on-going projects at the airport, the Honourable Minister said “We have seen a number of projects at different levels of completion. We have seen a lot of good work that has been done. There are some projects that are suffering as a result of number of different challenges. We have also seen the upgrade of the airport that shows an improvement in users experience, especially on the arrival of the MMIA”.

Mrs Ahmed further pointed out that, it is very evident that “we need to do a lot of work to upgrade the departure area of the airport. The luggage handling process is very problematic. It is largely manual and as a result of that, customers spend hours before getting their luggage. That needs to be addressed”.

Confirming that some of the reports on the projects given to the ministry tallies with what is on ground, the minister, however, pointed out that progress made on some of the projects were lower than the report they have.

“On the inspection, we found out that some of the information provided tallies with what we have but some do not. We are asking the authority to re-assess them and submit to us the correct state of completion. The completion rate of some of the projects were lower than what was reported in the reports.

The Minister was accompanied by officials of the Budget and National Planning Ministry and other stakeholders in the aviation industry including: Director General, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Captain Usman Murthar; Director of Finance & Accounts, Nike Aboderin;  Director, Commercial & Business Development, Sadiku A. Rafindadi; Ag. Director, Maintenance & Engineering, Engr. Salisu Daura; Chief of Staff to MD, FAAN, Zakari Mahmuda; General Manager, Budget & Planning; Abiodun Adegbesan; Ag. Airport Manager, Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Victoria Shin-Aba; General Manager, DGM, Airfield Services, Jim Opotu and Public Affairs,  FAAN, Mrs Henrietta Yakubu.