There is palpable fear among the staff of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA),following a disclosure by the Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, that President Muhammadu Buhari had approved the sacking of no fewer than 1,500 staff of the two establishments.
NCAA and NAMA staff resumed with moody faces on Monday because they are gripped with fear as to who will be sacked.
The fate of the two agencies has been hanging on the balance since government broached the idea of concessioning the country’s airports, leading to scaling down its concerns in the three parastatals under the ministry: FAAN, NCAA and NAMA.
Sirika, at a public function at the weekend confirmed that his ministry had received a presidential order stating categorically that the Presidency is no longer comfortable with alleged bloated workforce at the agencies.
He said the staff prune down, which started with FAAN, is now to be carried out in the remaining two, with more than 90 general managers, on level 17; about 22 assistant general managers and other cadres on levels 15 and above.
He stated, “Government has no option than to weed out unrequired personnel in the system,” adding that, “President Muhammadu Buhari has already given his approval for proper restructuring to take place in all the agencies.
“As I’m talking to you now, we have approval for proper restructuring in the agencies. We have started with FAAN and will very soon get to other remaining ones in the sector.”
But the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) said it is yet to accept the sacks that took place in FAAN in mid October 2016.
“It’s like this government is testing our collective will, and we’ll soon prove that there is a limit that we could be pushed to the wall and as such there will be no option than to totally ground the sector.” said the secretary general, Mr. Wale Adeoye .
