Aviation Ministry renamed Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace

The Federal has approved the change of name of the Federal Ministry of Aviation to the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace.

The approval was given at Wednesday’s meeting of the Federal Executive Council presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, who briefed the media after the meeting, said change the name became necessary in order to position to align with contemporary developments in aviation and aerospace.

Sirika explained that the alteration became expedient because it is on the exclusive list.

He, however, maintained that the future of aviation had experienced an advancement such that aviation and aerospace were intertwined and Nigeria had the need to proactively set its policies to align with future occurrences.

Sirika said that Nigeria’s civil aviation policy was last reviewed in 2013, explaining that the present administration waited for President Muhammadu Buhari to give his assent to the new act to enable the ministry to draft policies from the law.

“This policy is geared towards opening up the industry in line with the AU Agenda 2063 to integrate Africa through civil aviation and to promote entrepreneurship and find access to finance, to money, to equipment that is affordable without putting the country at risk and within our country Nigeria.”

The Minister said Aviation, like Foreign Affairs, was in the Exclusive Legislative List in Nigeria’s Constitution and that there was no need to have the word “Federal” in its name.

Sirika said that the Federal Executive Council approved over N2.4billion for the award of contract for the supply, installation of airfield grounding lighting and associated civil works for Taxiway B, also known as Taxiway Bravo, at the Murtala Muhammadu International Airport, Lagos.

He said the contract was awarded to Messrs KSR 3 Nigeria Ltd who is representing Messrs ADB SafeGate BV, a company from Belgium.

The Ministry of Aviation also got approval for the purchase of the Zaria Hotel in Kaduna State for the use of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Technology, NCAT.

The hotel will be rehabilitated and will be used for executive courses and to house some students and trainees in the college.

Wednesday’s meeting of the Federal Executive Council also approved that the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja and the Malam Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano be concessioned.

The Aviation Minister said the group of persons and consortium that won the bid were Messrs Corporacion America Airports Consortium, which has as subsidiaries Messrs Mota Engil Africa and Messrs Mota Engil Nigeria.

He explained that the concession was through a public, private partnership, PPP, which would be for 20 years for Abuja and 30 years for Kano.