Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika
Air Nigeria to take-off April 2022 – Minister, as Aviation ministry gets N1.4bn for regulatory equipment
Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, says the country’s national air carrier, Air Nigeria, is expected to take off by April 2022.
He made the disclosure on Wednesday, while briefing State House Correspondents at the end of this week’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
According to Sirika, the national airliner will be run by a company in which the government will hold a five percent stake, Nigerian entrepreneurs 46 percent and the remaining 49 percent will be reserved for yet to be assigned strategic equity partners, including foreign investors.
He further revealed that, when it becomes operational, the national carrier would create about 70,000 jobs for Nigerians.
Meanwhile, the Federal Executive Council has approved a contract worth N1.4 billion for the procurement of automated regulatory equipment to be installed at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.
The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika revealed this on Wednesday to State House Correspondents at the end of the weekly cabinet meeting chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari.
He said the software would allow the monitoring of all aviation activities on one platform.
“Today in Council, civil aviation presented two memoranda. The first one is approval for the award of contract for the provision of Automated Civil Aviation Regulatory Equipment, including software support and training, which will be located in Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport.
“In summary, this is software that will allow all of the activities of civil aviation regulation to be done electronically on one platform, including payments, including follow-ups on personnel licensing, the medicals, the economic regulation of airlines, safety regulation of airlines and all other businesses within the envelope of civil aviation will be monitored by this single software.
“It is called ‘the truth machine’ in quotation marks in Europe, because all of the truth of the regulation of civilization will appear on this platform, it’s extremely important software that the world has now come to terms with.”
The minister further explained that the contract was given to a company that developed the software.
“The contract was given to a company that is the creator of this software, one of its kind in the world, at the sum of N1, 492,520,325, which will be including 7.5% VAT and completion period of six months,” he added.
