The long-awaited cleansing in the country’s aviation sector may have finally started as information filtered into the sector, on Saturday that the Federal Government, through the Ministry of Transport, has downgraded over 40 General Managers and deputy general managers at the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).
The Minister of State for Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, has recently complained about the huge number of general managers in FAAN, declaring that he could not work with such a huge size.
Following the decision to downgrade some top personnel at FAAN, a particular staff member formerly placed on level 17 was demoted to level 10 and redeployed to another department in the same organization.
Another staff member still in the organisation, who rose through the ranks to become a director, was said to have been moved to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
The demotion exercise followed a petition written to the then Ministry of Aviation by the industry unions, who complained that personnel were unfairly placed in the agency.
Prior to the demotion exercise, a letter was issued from the Ministry of Transport a week ago for the demotion of some of the personnel to levels 10, 12 and 14.
According to information gathered, some of the affected General Managers who were demoted graduated in 2008 and 2010 and were placed on Levels 16 and 17 when they were brought into the system by a former minister of aviation about five years ago.
The government is said to be worried that FAAN’s overhead cost is about N800 million monthly.
The development came just as the minister was alleged to have equally engaged almost 50 personnel in the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) in the last one month.
Most of the new personnel engaged by Sirika were support staff, posted to the Abuja office of NCAA and were given management positions, which has sparked controversy across the sector.
Sunday Tribune gathered that plans to reduce the 11 directorates in FAAN to six by the ministry were nearing conclusion, with a similar plan in the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) and NCAA.
The demotion exercise at FAAN according to information was as a result of a petition written to the then Ministry of Aviation by the industry unions who complained that some personnel were unjustly placed in the agency.
The petition led to the formation of a committee headed by the Head of Service while the President of Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN), Comrade Benjamin Okewu was a member.
The committee which carried out what it termed ‘Operation show your certificate’ in the course of the exercise discovered that several personnel who were brought into the system did not have the required certificates and experience to hold the critical positions they were given.
After the exercise, it was gathered that the committee recommended “proper placement of staff in FAAN, ” and also found out that some of them had no letters of employments, but rather, were absorbed into the system by “ordinary notes from some highly people in government.”
Also on the card is the plan by government to prune the number of directorates in the aviation agencies in its restructuring exercise.
Some staff spoken to across the agencies who confirmed the development however expressed fears that this may be the beginning of the tsunami in the sector under the present government.
-Tribune
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