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We received ?7.7bn COVID-19 intervention fund – FAAN MD

The Managing Director, of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) Olubunmi Kuku on Thursday said the authority got ?7.7 billion as a COVID-19 intervention fund.

She made this known at a public hearing on COVID-19 funds, organised by the House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts in Abuja.

The managing director said that 2020 was particularly challenging for the authority owing to the advent of the coronavirus.

She recalled that on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 as a global pandemic.

Kuku said the declaration negatively impacted all human activities, with the aviation industry as one of the most severely affected.

“At that time, FAAN was barely able to part-pay staff salaries, while other commitments were put on hold with only about five percent revenue deployed for airport maintenance.

This situation did not augur well with the various aviation unions; this resulted in them issuing threats to shut down the airports if something drastic was not done.

“This gave rise to the request by the authority, through the supervising ministry, for a six-month salary intervention in the sum of N16.8 billion for payment of personnel costs and other related costs.

“From this request, the sum of N7.7 billion was released to FAAN out of the N24 billion requested by the Ministry of Aviation as an intervention fund,” she said.

Earlier, the managing director explained to the lawmakers that FAAN is statutorily charged with the management of all commercial airports in Nigeria and providing services to passengers, airlines, and other aviation sector stakeholders.

Kuku said the authority is responsible for creating conditions for the development of air transport and services connected with it, most economically and efficiently.

She said the Act which established FAAN, empowered it to spend monies collected on expenses and projects approved in its yearly Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) budget.

According to her, monies derived from the various revenue sources annually are spent on personnel, overheads, and capital costs as well as making remittances to the Federation Account

 

Responding, the Chairman of the Committee, Rep. Bamidele Salam (PDP-Osun) ruled that the authority should furnish the committee with relevant documents to account for the breakdown of the funds.

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