FAAN workers meet ICRC over airport concession

In continuation of aviation unions’ engagements with stakeholders and relevant agencies of government over the proposed concession of four international airports – Lagos, Abuja, Port-Harcourt and Kano – some workers’ unions met with representatives of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC).

The meeting, it was learnt, was at the instance of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria(FAAN) as part of the ongoing consultations on the planned concession which the unions had earlier kicked against.

ICRC has a mission to sensitize both management and the unions on public private partnership (PPP) as it applies to the affected airports.

Both parties had enough time to articulate their points which emanated from series of presentations made by ICRC and those from previous engagements.

Issues raised at the meeting included the failure to carry the workers along in the concession and the appointment of transaction advisers; the exact part of the affected airports to be concessioned; the role of ICRC in MMA2 concession so far and why the government is not exploiting other favourable types of concessions that would create more jobs and boost internally generated revenue?

However, General Secretary of the Nigeria Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), Comrade Olayinka Abioye, told Daily Trust that the union was not invited to the gathering, saying the position of the unions opposing concession remained the same.