•It’s very insignificant –AFARN laments
By Chinelo Obogo and Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), on Tuesday, said it has cleared verified outstanding liabilities to foreign airlines with $64.44 million.
The money is forex backlog accumulated from the sales of international flight tickets by foreign airlines operating in Nigeria.
Confirming the figures, CBN’s Spokesperson, Mrs Hakama Sidi Ali, noted that the last payment brought the total of verified amount paid to the concerned airlines to $136.73 million.
She added that all the verified claims have now been cleared.
She added that the CBN was working with relevant stakeholders to ensure that liquidity improves within the forex market to ease the pressure on the naira.
Last year, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), said $1.68 billion belonging to foreign airlines was currently trapped in Africa. Speaking at the African Airlines Association (AFRAA) 55th Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Entebbe, Uganda, IATA’s regional vice president of Africa and Middle East, Kamil Al Alwadi, said the trapped fund hit $1.68 billion at the end of September, 2023.
The countries holding on to the foreign airlines funds are Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Angola and Zimbabwe and Nigeria accounts for over $750 million of that amount. IATA attributed trapped funds as one of the major issues plaguing aviation in Africa, describing the numbers as alarming with it having a huge and devastating impact on connectivity.
Speaking on the most recent development, the president, Association of Foreign Airlines and Representatives in Nigeria (AFARN), Dr. Kingsley Nwokoma, said that foreign airlines may exit the country if they are unable to repatriate their funds.
He told Daily Sun that just like the initial $61 million, the $64.44 million released by the CBN remains insignificant and ‘a drop in the ocean.’
He said: “The earlier amount that was released was N61 million and now they are saying that N64.4 million has been released. We need to know who and who got it. The amount is still a drop in an ocean. If you have over $500m trapped, you will expect the airline to get at least 50 percent of that amount or something substantial. What the government of Nigeria is owing foreign airlines is over $800 million and what they have paid so far is about $120 million which is not even up to 50 percent. Yes, they are making some effort but we want something more substantial. If they had paid like $200 million, we can say, okay, the government is taking it one step at a time. We want the government to come into an agreement with the airlines where they would be making quarterly payments till the debt is cleared.”
Daily Sun had earlier reported that the failure of the CBN to release at least 50 percent of the trapped funds caused the loss of about 40 percent of the country’s travel market share.
A travel consultant, Yinka Folami told Daily Sun that because foreign airlines operating in Nigeria have been unable to repatriate the revenue generate from the sale of tickets, they blocked their lower inventories to travelers who wish to buy tickets from Nigeria. This, he said, was one of the reasons why the cost of international flight is high and that because of this, many Nigerians now prefer to book tickets from the west coast, Europe and from the UK.