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By Chinelo Obogo
The Director General of Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Captain Musa Nuhu (retd), has warned against the spread of misinformation over the forthcoming International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) audit slated for the first quarter of 2022.
He said the Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP) Continuous Monitoring Approach (CMA) which will deal with the implementation of the eight critical elements is not the same as Annexes 9 and 17 which deals with security and facilitation.
Reacting to a report claiming that the country is not ready for an audit, Nuhu who made the distinction on Monday, said it is wrong for anyone to say the country is not ready for something they can barely tell apart. He said that the report had referred to Annexes 9 and 17 explaining that ICAO Annex 9 is on facilitation, while Annex 17 contains Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) concerned with the security of international air transport and is amended regularly to address the evolving threat.
He explained that the USOAP audit is an activity during which ICAO assesses the effective implementation of the critical elements (CEs) of a safety oversight system and conducts a systematic and objective review of a State’s safety oversight system to verify the status of its compliance with the provisions of ICAO Convention.
Nuhu explained that security has its own separate audit and that Nigeria performed well in the last security audit conducted by ICAO, scoring 96.4 per cent and the country received ICAO Council President Award Certificate for its performance.
Nuhu explained further that the USOAP-CMA Audit (security audit) is now scheduled for the third quarter of 2022 and that NCAA’s aspirational Effective Implementation (EI) score for the USOAP-CMA Audit is 90 per cent. He insisted that all hands are on deck to ensure this becomes a reality.
“NCAA will step up its oversight function and collaboration with all relevant stakeholders to ensure continued improvement in aviation security and facilitation. A security audit is different from a safety audit. What we are doing now is quite different from security audit and it’s not related to facilitation. I understand facilitation is good for passengers, but, it has nothing to do with the current audit.
“The last security audit we had, Nigeria scored 96.4 per cent and because of this performance, Nigeria received ICAO Council President Award Certificate for its performance.
“I accept we have some challenges in the industry, just like in the other countries around the world. However, to say Nigeria is not ready for audit is a misnomer. Someone is saying we are not ready for two issues that are not part of the forthcoming audit. I think that is wrong,” he said.
