Posted by Sade Williams
The Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria, will by February 2019, take delivery of six Diamond D40 aircraft, increasing its fleet to 16.
This was disclosed by the Rector of the College, Capt. Abdulsalami Mohammed, during a chat at the Gateway Forum organised by the League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC), at Lagos airport on Wednesday.
According to him, the institution had first ordered for 20 of the aircraft type but was sold by the manufacture when NCAT could not provide the money immediately.
He said the the college decided to start ordering for the aircraft in batches, adding that the first batch of six would be delivered by the first the first quarter of 2019.
“As at last month, we have 10 aircraft but the daily serviceability status fluctuates, some are taken for maintenance when the hours are exhausted. So for the Diamond aircraft, we have the contract for the supply of 20 but because of budgetary constrains, we order for them in batches.
“The College placed an order for six of DA40 and we made all the payments that will guarantee the delivery of the aircraft and we will go for factory acceptance by January and February, 6 aircraft would be delivered to NCAT”, he said.
Mohammed, who disclosed his plans to include doubling capacity and introducing courses that would increase the college’s Internally Generate Revenue (IGR), noted that by 2019, courses to train people on the use of Drones would commence.
He said that already, the college has trained the personnel that will conduct the training and acquire the drone.
“Because of security consideration, the Office if the National Security Adviser is monitoring the importation of Drones, our training will be concentrated on the knowledge and where it can operate, we will also provide hands on training for them to operate safely. We are also introducing Rescue and Firefighting courses, as we speak the simulation is in progress and we hope it would be completed next year, also we have a school for training aviation security officers. We have plans to move the college forward, aviation is highly technical and evolving and we need to have up-to-date equipment and courses for training pilots and others. All these efforts would have been impossible, save for the support of the Minister of Aviation”, he added.
He called on the National Assembly to pass the bill for the amendment of the act establishing NCAT, adding that such would pave way for the college to have access to Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) for better funding of the school.
On capacity building, he disclosed that in 2018, 104 staff were trained within the college; 181 were trained in 2019 while over 80 persons sere sent to public service institutions in Abuja and Kaduna, adding that NCAT is also in talks with some other institutions including airlines, to also send their staff for training at the college.
“We signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Aero for their engineering students to come to Zaria for on the job training, we have finalised the agreement, Aero being an MRO organisation will need the services of the engineers, we signed an MoU with Air Mac for students to come from Niamey for training at NCAT. Our collaboration with some institutions like Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and Kaduna State University are yielding results”, he added.
