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No automatic jobs for NAL workers in Virgin Nigeria -
CEO
By Rotimi Durojaiye
Aviation
Correspondent, Lagos
Qualified
and experienced they may be, but old employees of liquidated Nigeria Airways
Limited (NAL) will not be given jobs automatically in the new national carrier,
Virgin Nigeria Airways (VNA).
And
the management team may not necessarily be Nigerians, VNA Chief Executive
Officer Simon Harford told newsmen in Lagos at the weekend.
It
would soon begin the recruitment of “thousands of qualified
people”, however, he ruled out employment for former NAL workers on a
platter of gold.
“I’m
working already with a team of 70 experts. We are blending skills already. We
will employ thousands of Nigerians, but the airline will be completely
separated from Virgin Atlantic Airways. We will employ people in the field of
engineering, marketing, finance, insurance and accounting. We will run the
business in a separate entity from the old Nigeria Airways. Nigeria does not
want another rushed job”, Harford said.
His
preference is to recruit locals because they have “the qualification and
a better understanding” of the Nigerian market, however, “if those
persons could not be gotten from Nigeria, we will go outside the country. I
have the responsibility to get the right persons, with the right scale and
qualifications, the people who are acceptable to all investors”.
Harford,
who has held several senior positions in the aviation industry across the
world, disclosed that the core investors for the national carrier, Virgin
Atlantic and the government would soon select a leading investment bank in
Nigeria to place the 51 percent equity meant for the Nigerian public and
institutional investors.
The
airline has pledged not rush things and is still processing the relevant
documents with the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and the Corporate
Affairs Commission (CAC).
Last
September, the government appointed Virgin Atlantic as the strategic
investor/technical partner in VNA, in which the British airline holds 49
percent equity worth $50 million. Nigerians and institutional investors are
expected to take up the remaining 51 per cent of $250 million.
With
the sharing arrangement, Virgin Atlantic would emerge the largest shareholder.
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