CEOAFRICA gathered that the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, yesterday, denied that local airline operators have stopped paying charges to all aviation agencies, with effect from November 1, 2013 pending the review of such charges.

It will be recalled that Mohammed Tukur, spokesman of Airline Operators of Nigeria, AON, last week said airline operators would stop remitting aviation charges to the affected agencies as a result of obsolete infrastructure at Nigerian airports, epileptic navigation aids, lack of accountability in the utilisation of aviation taxes.

According to source, while reacting to the allegation, Coordinating General Manager, Communications, Aviation Parastatals; Yakubu Dati, said “our attention has been drawn to a fictitious and misleading news release, authored by Mr. Tukur, the supposed spokesperson of the Airlines Operators of Nigeria, AON, alleging that airlines under the aegis of the association would stop paying charges to all aviation agencies, with effect from November 1, 2013 pending review of such charges.

According to Tukur, airline operators would stop remitting such charges to the affected agencies, as a result of “obsolete infrastructure at Nigerian airports, epileptic navigation aids, and lack of accountability in the utilisation of aviation taxes, among other clearly malicious, ill-motivated and unfounded allegations.”

He added: “To show that the said release was only a figment of Tukur’s imagination, the said author currently does not work for any airline and cannot rightly speak for them, all airlines in the country have continued to remit their charges accurately to various aviation agencies to date.”

Dati further said: “To the best of our knowledge, all operational airlines in the country continue to maintain a cordial business relationship with all the aviation agencies providing them services because they know that the present administration has shown undeniable commitment to the development of the country’s aviation industry.

“We therefore wish to urge all well meaning aviation stakeholders and the general public to see the said release by Mr. Tukur as a hatchet job, designed to put a spanner in the works of government’s transformation agenda in the aviation industry.”