AM EDITORIAL: FAAN Headquarters’ Return To Lagos For Cost Saving Reasons
Former Minister of Aviation & Aerospace Development, Senator Hadi Sirika had in 2020, directed all aviation agencies in Nigeria to relocate their headquarters from Lagos to Abuja and this directive was complied with, despite protests by aviation workers.
In January 2024, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), one of the agencies, relocated its headquarters back from Abuja to Lagos.
The current Minister, Barrister Festus Keyamo (SAN) said in a Channels Television interview on January 31, 2024 that the relocation of FAAN headquarters back from Abuja to Lagos was based on his permission, citing costs and reflection of waste of resources involved in sustaining the Abuja headquarters status.
Keyamo said the management of FAAN had approached him, pleading that he should allow them to move their operational base back to Lagos State because of costs, including the amount spent on air tickets between Lagos and Abuja just to sign a simple document.
According to him, Duty Tour Allowance for principal officers who travelled back and forth from Lagos to Abuja almost on a daily basis, came to N493,678,620.37. This is aside from air tickets amounting to N451,058,950.09.
By implication, close to N1 billion was spent by FAAN in 2003 alone for reasons of having its headquarters in Abuja.
We applaud this move by the Minister to curb unnecessary wastage of scarce resources by an agency, in the process of implementing a possibly ill-advised directive issued by a previous Minister.
We urge Minister Keyamo to beam his searchlight on other agencies and various segments of the sector to detect where similar senseless wastages exist, and put an end to them in the interest of growth and development of the industry.AM
