FG Demotes Top Officials In Aviation

No fewer than 30 general managers and deputy general managers of parastatals in the aviation sector have been demoted. This is part of the federal government’s plans to restructure the sector.

Also, some managers formerly placed on level 17 were in a letter issued by the Ministry of Transport demoted to level 10 and redeployed to other departments in the same organisation.

According to reports, the personnel affected were beneficiaries of alleged illegal promotions and appointments of some years ago, as they have not served for the number of years required for such offices.  The demotion exercise was government’s response to series of petitions alleging illegalities in employment processes and promotions during the last administration.

Earlier, the Minister of State for Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika complained about the huge number of general managers in FAAN. He said he could not work with such a larger number, with attendant wage bill of N800 million a month. It was also revealed that plans were already on to reduce the 11 directorates in FAAN to six, with similar plan for the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) and Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).

The restructuring would return FAAN, NAMA and NCAA back to the status quo of fewer directorate they had some six years ago, with mass sack of “unqualified workers.”

However, it would be recalled that a former minister of aviation some years ago expanded the directorates in FAAN from six to 10. The six were Directorates of Administration, Commercial, Finance, Engineering Operations and Security. The Directorate of Legal Service, which was a department under the Managing Director’s office, emerged, alongside Directorates of Cargo, Projects and Human Resources.

The new exercise would see Directorates of Human Resources and Administration come together as it was before; Directorate of Project would go back to Engineering Directorate and Cargo Directorate would revert to Directorate of Commercial.