By Sade Williams
Managing Director, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mrs. Olubunmii Kuku has said that the Authority will begin the hybrid system while it continues to review the cashless payment at airports toll gates with a view to improving the system.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had on Wednesday suspended the cashless payment system at Nigeria’s airports’ toll gates as gridlock built up due to hitches encountered in the process.
Kuku said on Thursday that the suspension was to give FAAN for more time to test run the initiative before full deployment and implementation.
Speaking at Lagos airport on Thursday, Kuku said the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo also told the Authority to ensure an improvement of the initiative before being fully rolled out.
“So for me and the agency, we actually thank Mr. President for this laudable initiative. The fact that the President is not just taking federal government initiatives or policy rollouts but understanding the nature of every environment. He saw the traffic gridlock that we were having as we were rolling out the cashless policy and in his good nature and understanding of our environment, took it upon himself to ask us to revert back to status quo or the hybrid approach. That’s what we’re doing. So this is a win for the industry.
” He’s actually given us some time to go back and refine. So if you know, we were working with the private sector, the technology that we have actually works. We also had four modes of payment, but what he said is refine it, make sure that we have enough users
” You also heard the Honorable Minister yesterday following the Federal Executive Council meeting where hr said Mr. President has asked us not necessarily to suspend but to make sure that the process itself is improved before it gets ruled out. I consider this to be a major win for the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria as well as the Ministry of Aviation.”, she said.
The FAAN boss who gave reasons for rolling out the initiative as early as March said it was following the deadline given by the Federal Government.
‘So if you recall, we actually started the cashless policy last year. We started a lot of enlightenment, even the National Orientation Agency, you can check their Instagram and their social media handles, had publicized it as far back as October of last year. We were asked to implement a federal government directive which was done at the Federal Executive Council. This was what we were pushing towards, but unfortunately we were given a deadline.
“We had actually asked for a hybrid approach that allows us to do both cashless as well as automated. I do want to say that despite all of the enseignements that were started, I believe that a lot of passengers as well as commuters did not realize that we will actually stick to the March 1st deadline that was given to us. I would say that from October to February or from October to March 3rd, we actually had over a hundred thousand users that we enrolled, of which 60,000 of those users were actually enrolled in the last three days. So for me, that is a major win.
“So from what we have so far, one is to make sure that the technology works, secondly, to make sure that a lot of our users are more enlightened. We will give more people the options to pick up whether it’s the cards, the e-tags, and then bring on the private sector on board to ensure that we have learned from the initial prices.
Kuku however, hailed the process as a successful initiative when it comes to user registration and the number of people who were able to come on board.
” To be frank, we actually had at least 99% success with the cashless cards that were deployed. However, we did realize that it created a significant amount of gridlock, especially in Lagos. You would note that the location of the toll gates in itself is not necessarily ideal. And I say that because it’s not just for airport users, right? Within the Lagos environment, you have other commuters who are either people working in the airport area or commuting to other areas. So going to Keja, other locations. So we will continue to have unique users, not just repeat users, being service workers of the airport environment and passengers, hence the amount of gridlock.
“In Abuja, for example, by day three, enforcement only started on Sunday. By Wednesday, we actually had a reduction in the amount of gridlock. But Mr. President saw it. We saw it. And he looked at it and said, look, we don’t want passengers missing their flights. We don’t want to have a negative experience. So for him to go back, look at the policy and say, Aviation, you have more time, roll this out and implement this properly when you’ve onboarded the right number of users, given a number of appropriate channels.
” So I’m sure that in the next couple of days, once we’ve sort of gone down on the gridlock that we had over the last few days, we’ll look at it again and see how we can use the hybrid approach. If you listen to the minister’s interview after the Federal Executive Council, he did say hybrid approach, which still allows users to potentially use their cards and also pass through the toll. But at least now, we will still be able to accommodate cash where it’s applicable.”, she said.
