By Dickson Omobola
Managing Director of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, NAMA, Engr Farouk Umar, has said the agency is seeking increased funding because inadequate resources are limiting efforts to modernise Nigeria’s airspace infrastructure and strengthen aviation safety.
Umar also urged the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, to support the agency’s funding demands, saying some of the navigational equipment in the country had been in use for more than two decades and needed to be replaced.
Addressing newsmen, Umar lamented that NAMA’s internally generated revenue, IGR, was insufficient to meet its operational needs, saying a large portion of its earnings was spent on workers’ salaries, claims and other financial obligations.
He said: “For the last three and a half years, if you could recall, I had a presentation that NAMA is no longer on trial; it is on course. I have my reason for saying so because we met a system that was decaying, and it needed an insider who understood the system to arrest the drift. The entire communication architecture of the Nigerian airspace, as we met it, was in a terrible shape.
