By Lawani Mikairu & Daniel Eteghe

The  fourteen day ultimatum given by the regulatory authority to debtor airlines to pay up their debts expired on August 13.Following the expiration,  Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has declared that it was determined to sanction all defaulting airlines who fail to pay up the five per cent Ticket Sales Charge, TSC, and Cargo Sales Charge, CSC, to the authority.

NCAA: Plane

General Manager , Public Affairs, NCAA, Mr. Fan Ndubuoke  who affirmed that the ultimatum was issued on July 30th in an interview, stressed that the authority would visit the full wrath of the law against all the debtor airlines.

Mr. Ndubuoke further noted that at the close of work on the date the ultimatum would expire the management of NCAA would sit down and strategize how to recover its debts from the airlines.

He however debunk claims by the airlines that NCAA charges were crippling their operations stressing that the authority was not placing additional charges on the airlines rather the charges was built into the Air Ticket of the airlines.

He said “We would have said that let the NCAA officials go and collect the money and you know that it will make the whole place rowdy and all that, so we said let it be built in the course of Air Ticket, it is not an additional fare but when some of the airlines said that their operations are been crippled because of NCAA charges, they lie, it is not their money, it is NCAA money”.

“We have always expected them to play by the rules, this is the first time that we are giving them ultimatum and if by tomorrow they fail, we will take the necessary action but for now we can’t pre-empt who are yielding to the ultimatum”.

Asked to know how many airlines have complied so far, Mr. Ndubuoke said “No, I will not be able to tell you that, if I tell you that somebody has not complied and by tomorrow he does or before the end of today he does, am I right, no I am not, so the best thing is to give everybody the benefit of doubt that some people are slow starters, we will give them till the time that we said that we are going to give them and after that we will know the next line of action.

NCAA will not be making any further statement on that until the deadline elapse. The airlines were written, I need to know what time the letters got to them and be sure that it is tomorrow that it is expiring so at the expiration of the deadline that we have given to them, we will do that which we said that we will do”.

It will be recalled that the NCAA General Manager, Public Affairs had said that erring airlines would be sanctioned at the expiration of the 14 days ultimatum, stressing that failure to comply with the directive of remittance of the outstanding payments; the Authority would enforce the provisions of section 27(3) of the Civil Aviation Act.

Ndubuoke said “NCAA would take all measures contained therein to enforce collection of the debts.” According to him, the ultimatum was a final notice to all erring airline operators noting that at the expiration of the ultimatum, names of the debtor airlines would be published in most of the national dailies if they refused to comply.

He added that “In addition, the names of the debtor airlines and amount owed shall be published in at least five national dailies. The names of the promoters of these airlines, directors and other related parties will be included in the publication upon the expiration of this ultimatum.”