The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria has stated that the relocation of its headquarters from Abuja to its original base in Lagos came to fruition after wide consultation by the new management of the agency with stakeholders which they admitted was in the interest of the authority and country.
Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection, Mrs. Obiageli Orah in a statement late on Thursday those affected by the decision to move the headquarters to Abuja have since returned to Lagos as there was no office space for them in Abuja, describing it as “ill-advised in the first place to move the headquarters to Abuja when there was no single FAAN building in Abuja to accommodate all of them at once.”
Having returned to Lagos, she said the authority would be liable to pay them DTA (Duty Tour Allowance) because technically they were working outstation as their official posting is to Abuja, stressing that the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development had decided to stop the waste of public resources and rip-off on the public purse.
The other option open to the authority, Orah said was to abandon the old FAAN building in Lagos to rot away and to use its scarce resources to rent an office space in Abuja for millions of Naira of public money when in actual fact more than sixty percent of its activities are in Lagos given the huge passenger volume of the Lagos airports.
According to her, the stakeholders and the Minister decided against that and to save the country the waste. The other option open to the authority was to abandon the old FAAN building in Lagos to rot away and to use its scarce resources to rent an office space in Abuja for Millions of Naira of public money when in fact more than sixty percent of its activities are in Lagos given the huge passenger volume of the Lagos airports, adding that the stakeholders and the Minister decided against that and to save the country this waste.
She said, “The Minister has rolled out plans to get concessionaires to build befitting offices for the authority in Lagos and Abuja and until that is done, the authority will continue to manage its old building in Lagos that can accommodate all its directors and senior officials for now.”
“Abuja continues to have full operational offices and the Authority has not scaled down operations in Abuja one bit. It is just the technical decision of where the Authority has its ‘corporate headquarters’ that has been taken without affecting the structure of operations as they are for now in both cities.”
Orah disclosed that shortly when befitting corporate buildings have been built for the authority in both Lagos and Abuja, a final decision would be taken as to the location of the permanent headquarters, depending on the exigencies of the time.
