AIB Defends Review Of Passengers’ Service Charge
The Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) Sunday justified the mandatory five per cent Passengers Service Charge (PSC) and its recent review, describing them as critical to the discharge of statutory regulatory functions of aviation agencies.
AIB, one of the five beneficiary agencies of the PSC, said the fund was needed to clear outstanding backlog of accident investigation exercises.
A five per cent PSC on every ticket sold in the country goes to various agencies at certain percentages.
The apex regulatory body, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) in accordance with the Civil Aviation Act 2006 gets 58 per cent.
Others like the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) earns 23 per cent, Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) gets seven per cent, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) earns nine per cent and AIB gets three per cent until it was recently increased to five per cent.
AIB Commissioner, Akin Olateru, said it was within the purview of the Minister of State for Aviation to upgrade AIB’s allocation in view of the task before it.
Olateru bemoaned the criticism that trailed the approval of five per cent of the PSC to the agency by the ministry from a section of the industry, saying several AIB projects were stalled because of paucity of funds.
Also, a team from Singapore and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Sunday arrived Nigeria for the training of technical personnel of AIB on the use of the Safety Laboratory Equipment in Abuja and technical evaluation of the laboratory prior to its update.
The team, led by Michael Toft and Caj Frostel is expected to commence work today on the equipment.