The last may not have been heard of the crisis rocking the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) over alleged N5billion fraud and subsequent arrest of top officials of the agency, as a coalition of Aviation Union and Professional association have called on government to appoint a substantive Managing Director or face its consequence on safety.
The group in a statement signed by its spokesman, Johnson Agbede and made available to the media stated that, if urgent steps are not taken, this could adversely erode safety as workers do not know whom to take directive from.
They lamented that leadership crisis s currently tearing NAMA apart following the appointment of two officials in Acting capacity in less than one week.
It would be recalled that on February 16, 2016, the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi had directed Mr. Emmanuel Anasi, an Acting Director to again act as the MD/CE in the absence of the substantive CEO.
Shortly after, this appointment did not go down well with the substantive directors in the agency who now petitioned the Ministry that the tradition of allowing the most senior director to act was not applied.
Sequel to this petition, the Ministry on Friday directed Uwem Akangson, the current Director of Human Resources, who is the most senior director to take over as the Acting Managing Director.
Following this development, the Coalition called on the Minister of Transportation & the Minister of state to urgently intervene and save the agency from further crises by appointing a substantive Managing Director for the troubled Agency.
According to the group, “The huge financial scandal involving the management of NAMA is overwhelming for anybody to think he can come back to that office.”
They said the organisation therefore requires a substantive CEO who will immediately settle down to business to re organise and reposition the agency for the urgently needed service delivery.
The Unions reminded the authorities to recall that last year and the previous year, they had complained about poor Communication and other navigational facilities in the country’s airspace due to “corrupt practices in NAMA”, but the previous government threw a blind eye to it, now they have been vindicated.
By: Sade Williams
