The Director General, Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, Capt. Musa Nuhu has described, allegations of Tropical Arctic Logistics, TAL of corruption within the Authority system as baseless and unfounded.
This is just as he reiterated that, TAL has fallen short of the regulatory requirements in the renewal of its Air Operator Certificate, AOC.
In an interview, he emphasized that, until TAL meets the requirements to be issued the certificate, no amount of blackmail, accusations would move the NCAA to renew its AOC in violation of the NCARs and ICAO.
“NCAA has no reason whatsoever to refuse the renewal of anybody’s application. TAL does not meet the requirements for the renewal of its AOC and its AOC will not be renewed until they meet all the regulatory requirements, simple nothing more, nothing less. When they meet the requirements TAL who is an operator, NCAA is the regulator and NCAA is the one that issues the certificate and NCAA is the one that is in the position to determine if TAL has largely met the requirements for AOC, the Operator cannot determine for himself, we are the regulator and when they meet the regulator requirements they are certified and their AOC is issued”.
In an interview, Capt. Nuhu challenged TAL to produce evidence of their allegations against one of its staff alleged to have been involved in any illegal deal as regards the AOC renewal, adding that, the officer they were pointing accusing fingers at was not even a member of the TAL AOC team.
According to him, “let him talk, let him bring the evidence, you can’t go the market and start yelling throwing false accusations and there is no evidence, let him bring evidence and let him speak for himself. If he has evidence of the accusations he is making about one of my staff who has absolutely has nothing to do with the renewal of TAL’s AOC, AOC is renewed by a team, it is a team it is not an individual”.
He adds, “Engr Balang is not a member of that TAL AOC renewal team so, how can he stop it, I don’t understand, Engr. Balang has absolutely nothing to do with TAL and no sine individual in NCAA can or is able to stop even the process of any airline only the DG on his own even the DG I must have valid reasons to stop that, I can’t just stop it because I don’t like your face or have a disagreement with you I must have a legitimate and valid reasons to stop it, no other individual in the system, AOC process we know is done by a team”.
According to the DG, investigation had been conducted in-house and nothing of TAL’s accusation was found within, he therefore advised the operator to channel its energy to working hard in meeting the regulatory requirements for AOC renewal rather than making false accusations.
“Who told you have not done my in-house investigation? He is out there assuming I didn’t do my in-house check, that’s one of the assumption he is making, I did my own investigation, I didn’t my in-house cleaning, confirmation and there is nothing there and as far as am concerned, there is nothing officially or professionally not aware of in my investigation, how does he know have done this? He says am misinformed, he does not know the process I went through or the information have got, well, he is entitled to his own opinion, the truth is sacred”.
On calling the operator to order as this allegations are weighty to damaging Nigeria’s reputation in the International community, the NCAA boss said, “What do you want me to do, call him to order? There is freedom of expression in Nigeria, he can go and make the wide allegations, I can’t stop him from expressing his own opinion so what do you want me to do, shot him up? Tell him, he is doing damage to Nigeria not me, he is the one that is going to the press and haul accusations, there is freedom of press in Nigeria, freedom of speech, I can’t stop him from talking, you know what, there is a limit to speech and am looking at our options”.
(NewsBulletin)
