The National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE), NCAA Branch, has issued a warning to the National Assembly and federal policymakers, stating that a proposed legislative bill to slash the funding of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) represents a dangerous gamble with the lives of millions of air travellers.
In a comprehensive joint memorandum co-signed by Diepreye Stephen Saburugha, the Branch Chairman, and
Celestine Nkemakolam Chukwu, l the Branch Secretary, the technical union raised an alarm over a bill currently before lawmakers.
The draft legislation seeks to aggressively reduce the NCAA’s statutory share of the five percent Ticket Sales Charge (TSC) and Cargo Sales Charge (CSC) from 56 percent down to 40 percent—representing a severe 16 percent resource deficit. Concurrently, the bill proposes increasing the share of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) from 22 percent to 40 percent.
According to NAAPE, treating this as a routine fiscal redistribution of revenue among sister parastatals is a critical error. The technical workforce warns that starving the apex regulator of its financial lifeblood threatens its core regulatory independence, cripples active field surveillance, and exposes the nation’s airspace to systemic safety risks reminiscent of the country’s dark history of air disasters.
