Daily Independent Online.
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Friday, August 13, 2004.
Stakeholders, workers bemoan closure of Slok Airlines
Since the closure of Slok Airlines by the Federal
Government over alleged unethical practices March 12, this year, stakeholders
in the industry, as well as employees in the company, have been pleading with
the government to temper justice with mercy. Aviation Correspondent, Rotimi
Durojaiye, examines the social, economic and political implications of the
closure, which might swell the rank of the army of the unemployed in the
country.
How is it
possible to tow Slok Airlines out of the murky runway it crash-landed into on
March 12, this year? That was the crucial question in a letter from the Nigeria
Labour Congress (NLC) to the President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. Worried by the
fate of the workers in the embattled Slok Airlines, the NLC, last week,
appealed to Obasanjo to intervene on their. The letter, signed by the congress
President, Mr. Adams Oshiomole, reminded the president that the continued
closure of Slok Airlines was threatening the jobs of the workers.
On March 12, the
Federal Government, through the Ministry of Aviation, withdrew the Air Operator
Certificate (AOC) and the Air Transport Licence (ATL) of the airline, alleging
unethical practices. Management of the airline had repeatedly repudiated this
and insisted that the ministry acted in bad faith by grounding the airline.
The NLC stated
that the delay in the resolution of the misunderstanding has grave implications
for the economy.
“Though it
is beyond our competence , and certainly not our intention, to apportion
culpability in the matter, rather, the NLC insisted that it was difficult to
view lightly the delay in resolving the unfortunate controversy on the part of
the authorities given the social dimension and the implication for potential
private investors. We, therefore, appeal to Mr. President to avail the workers
of the airline and their families the benefit of Your Excellency’s
goodwill by setting into motion the machinery necessary for the resumption of
work in the company through the appropriate directives to the minister of
aviation”, the NLC stated.
Aviation
Minister, Mallam Isa Yuguda, had repeatedly said that “Slok breached
safety regulations and other aviation laws and we cannot seat and watch the
airline do that without enforcing the rules”. The minister said Slok did
not comply with civil aviation operational laws and the government had no
options but to suspend its operations.
Another airline,
IRS, also had its licence suspended on the same day with Slok for allegedly
damaging the Instrument Landing System (ILS) at the Kaduna Airport in December,
last year. However, its flying documents have been restored, having effected
repairs on the ILS.
The revocation of
Slok’s licence has taken many stakeholders in the industry, and Nigerians
in general, by surprise. Since the ban was placed, Daily Independent gathered that
the management of the company had
made several written communications to the relevant authorities without getting
any positive response. Three days after the licence was revoked, Slok was said
to have written to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA). It got no
reply. It wrote again on March 30, April 29 and May 17. It did not also get any
reply. The airline’s top management
was also said to have visited the NCAA to make representations, but no
acknowledgement of the visit. One of the letters said to have been routed
through Yuguda, on which he was said to have minuted to the NCAA, got missing
in transit. When the letter was said to have been traced later, the first page
on which the minister minuted and
signed was nowhere to be found.
Consequently, the NCAA said it had nothing to act upon.
Another letter
sent to Obasanjo on May 4, this year, by the managing director of the embattled
airline, Captain Ernest Bell-Gam, got it replied on July 17, this year, through
Professor Julius Ihonvbere, the Special Adviser to the President on Policy
Programmes Monitoring. In the reply, the president distanced himself from the
ban, insisting that the matter was
professional and technical in nature. “His Excellency advises that
you direct your appeal to the Honourable Minister of Aviation, who should be
able to consider your prayer on its merit”, the president said.
Founder of the
Nigerian Aviation Safety Initiative (NASI), Captain Jerry Agbeyegbe, said the
revocation does not conform with what the Civil Aviation Act says. His words :
“We believe that the Honourable Minister of Aviation, Mallam Isa Yuguda,
was poorly advised on what to do over the alleged offences of Slok. Grounding
it was too punitive and I am happy the case is still in court. We believe that
if the minister does not want to retrace his steps and unban Slok, the court
will do justice expected of it.” Agbeyegbe said the revocation went
contrary to the Civil Aviation Act, which came under the Civil Aviation (Air
Transport Licensing) Regulations, 1965, Part 2, regulation 10. “We have
also informed the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) through
several letters. We have also written to the British and African Civil Aviation
Authorities, stressing that the action of the minister was over-board”,
the NASI boss stressed.
Agbeyegbe is of
the opinion that the ban would have an adverse effect on the industry and the
economy in general. According to him : “here is an airline that leased
aircraft from a foreign company and only worked for three months or thereabout.
It has not been able to make remittance, as part of its lease purchase
agreement, due to no fault of its. That does not speak well of our country. It
will make it relatively difficult
for Nigerian airlines to lease planes from the international market and you know that is where we
get our aircraft in Nigeria from.”
Financially, Slok
has suffered heavy losses since the suspension of its operations. The
management has put its losses at
N5 billion. Its major financier, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, who also doubles as the
Abia State governor, has declared that he had been frustrated over the
continued suspension of Slok and was contemplating its closure. Kalu told
journalists in Lagos last month that he established the airline to give
employment to the teeming unemployed youths of the country, but that its
continued closure was frustrating this.
“Let me not
deceive you, I am fed up with all
these. In fact, I have forgotten about Slok. I have forgotten about it
completely”, he said. Explaining that the rationale behind his decision,
Kalu stated that since the aircraft were taken on lease purchase, they have to
be returned to their owners.
Frightened by the
grim prospects of returning to swell the rank of the army of the unemployed,
the workers have taken to the streets. The workers besieged the premises of the
NLC in Abuja to protest the continued suspension of operations of the airline
by the government. Kalu had said that he would have to sack all the workers,
who, he said, have been enjoying their entitlements since the company stopped operations.
A junior staff of
the airline, Abraham Onwe, carried
the grief of the entire workers on his face. Weeping profusely, Onwe said he
returned to employment with Slok after being laid off by Kabo Air seven years ago.
Onwe, in his 40s, had returned to farming in the Isheri neighbourhood of Lagos
after losing his job until Slok offered him a second chance. The
airline’s Lagos Airport Manager, Linus Emesara, said the company has
people with multiple university degrees, who have been without jobs for 10
years. In his words, many of the workers are being forced back to the labour
market. “Management has told them that if nothing happens before the end
of July, their jobs are gone. You can imagine sending all these people back to
the saturated labour market. We are suffering, we have families to feed, rents
to pay,” Emesara lamented.
Senior Station
Manager for the airline in Plateau State, Abdulkareem Idris, said the issue has
become a matter of national urgency. According to him, the lives and welfare of
over 1,000 workers and thousands of dependants are of at stake. Idris noted
that the continuous ban of Slok would constitute an embarrassing clog in
government’s poverty alleviation and reduction programmes. “These workers are being laid off
by this promising airline specifically established to raise the stakes in the
highly capital-intensive aviation sector. The airline was designed to
reposition Nigeria to its rightful place in the world of aviation services.
This national pride must not be allowed to die”, Idris pleaded. An
administrative officer with Slok, Femi Fadairo, pleaded with the government to
rescue the airline and its workers.
Not a few
Nigerians believe that the continued suspension of the airline’s licence
portends ill for the nation’s foreign investment drive. If anything, it
has heightened the fear that the Nigerian economy is a high-risk market
environment. In the same vein, not a few believe that Slok was grounded because of any unethical
practices. They openly accused the government of pursuing a political vendatta
against Kalu, who has substantial shares in the airline. Kalu had fallen out
with the Nigerian establishment when he alleged that the People’s
Democratic Party (PDP), Board of Trustees Chairman, Chief Tony Anenih, had threatened
to kill him. The belief that the action was more political than a mere
infraction of aviation rules compelled NASI to drag the NCAA to court. It has
also sent a petition to ICAO in Montreal, Canada. In the petition, the group
once more alleged political under-pining to the decision.
As a direct
fallout of the withdrawal of Slok’s licence, it was learnt that no fewer
than nine companies that have been given licence by the Federal Government to
operate airlines in the country, were said to have failed to secure the lease
of planes from their foreign owners. Consequently, Nigerian prospective airline
operators, hoping to lease aircraft from Europe and America, may well begin to
look elsewhere, as lessors in those parts of the world have closed the books to
businesses from Nigeria. The ban on Slok was said to have sent wrong signals to
aircraft owners, who are now said to be demanding cash deposits rather than go
into any lease agreement with any Nigerian airline operator. The aircraft
owners were said to have become wiser with the ban on Slok, which has now tied
down their money in Nigeria. They were said to be unwilling to go into any risk
venture in Nigeria .
Hitherto, several
aircraft owners in both Europe and America were satisfied with down- payment of
about 10-20 per cent of the total lease value on their aircraft. It enabled the
operator not only to purchase more aircraft, but to also free capital for other
areas of operation. With the new disposition of the lessors, it is doubtful
whether any of the nine operators, now shopping for planes with their AOL,
would be able to secure them to begin operations. Slok began operations in January, this year, with two Boeing
737-200 aircraft and shortly increased its fleet to four to accommodate other
routes from Lagos-Enugu, Lagos-Owerri
and Lagos Calabar. Later, it covered Lagos-Yola, Lagos-Sokoto,
Lagos-Kano, Lagos-Kaduna, Lagos-Maiduguri, Lagos-Port-Harcourt and a few
others.
It had only
operated a couple of weeks before the ban and as such, could no longer make
remittance to Jet Ram International, US, the company that owns the aircraft.
