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By Chinelo Obogo
President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to intervene in the crisis plaguing Nigeria’s travel industry as foreign airlines’ trapped funds in Nigeria hit $743 million following forex scarcity.
Daily Sun reliably gathered that at a meeting held at the instance of the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, in Abuja with representatives of foreign airlines, National Association of Nigeria Travel Agents (NANTA) and International Air Transport Association (IATA), Sirika assured that the issue will be tabled directly with President Buhari for his urgent intervention.
One of the stakeholders who was present at the meeting said: “The same promises made to us in the past is what was made to us again. The only difference is that this time around, the issue would bypass the Central Bank of Nigeria and be tabled directly to the president for speedy intervention. It is the difference between the promises we were given before and the one we got now. The Minister told us that he would be travelling to vote during the governorship election but that as soon as he is back, he will be able to give us a response in exactly one week time.”
IATA had at the meeting between the Minister, foreign airlines and NANTA, said that funds generated by sales of tickets by foreign airlines trapped in Nigeria has it $743,721,097 million from $662 million in January 2023 and $549 million in December 2022. In a letter addressed to Sirika and signed by the Area Manager, West and Central Africa, Dr. Samson Fatokun, IATA said that for over a year, Nigeria has been the country with the highest amount of airline blocked funds in the world.
The President of NANTA, Susan Akporiaye, had at a recent press conference, said that foreign airlines are exploiting Nigerian as they have removed the lower inventory rates which used to cost between N200,000 and N500,000 depending on the route. She said the Nigerian travel business has been crippled as passengers now travel to neigbouring countries like Ghana to book flights.
She said the leadership of NANTA has had series of meetings with the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to resolve the issues to no avail.
“It is only in Nigeria that a traveler is made to cough out over $2,000 for an economy ticket and also change the date of the flight itinerary for whatever reasons with about N1.5 million to N1.8 million. All low inventories have been blocked. This now means that Nigeria is at a disadvantage since the foreign airlines have mastered the art of exploiting the forex issue to their advantage,” she said.
