AIB Kicks For 10% Increase in Tax on Flight Ticket Sales

The Accident and Investiga­tion Bureau, AIB, has demanded an upward review of tickets sales tax paid by airlines in the country from the cur­rent five per cent to 10 per cent.

Commissioner/CEO of AIB, Dr. Felix Abali, who made this known in Lagos on Wednesday, June 15, also appealed to the Fed­eral Government to exempt technical personnel from the current embargo it has placed on foreign training.

Abali said ac­cident investigation done by the AIB, for instance, is a specialized technical area that requires special training which can only be obtained overseas.

The AIB Boss, who spoke yester­day at the AIB’s headquarters at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, MMA, Lagos, dur­ing the visit of the House Ad- Hoc Committee on Non-Oil Revenue and Remittances, said since the directive was announced by the Head of Service, technical person­nel in the nation’s aviation industry have not been able to embark on foreign train­ing to boost their technical knowledge.

He said it was important that government also in­creases the five per cent tick­et sales charge paid by air­lines to 10 per cent to boost funding to key aviation para­statals, stressing that paucity of funds has prevented the AIB from carrying out its du­ties as a responsible accident investigator.

According to him, the AIB, as parts of its succession plan required special funding to operate and hoped that the House of Representative Committee would use its good offices to push for the upward review of the ticket sales charge for the agency.