The delay in payment of estacodes and allowances of staff of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) left a group of inspectors who travelled to Amsterdam for a foreign training to beg friends and operators for financial support.
The training was initially scheduled for 2022 but shifted to 2023.
THE WHISTLER gathered that the inspectors were sent for the training without being paid any estacode which is contained in the budget.
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The inspectors were said to have travelled in the hope their estacodes would be immediately sent to them, but after waiting fruitlessly, some of the trainees resorted to begging money from friends and operators to survive.
NCAA Aviation Safety Inspectors attend qualification and proficiency training (foreign training) at least once a year. The training for each inspector depends on areas they are lacking specialty or aircraft-specific type training.
THE WHISTLER was informed by sources at the NCAA that withholding estacodes of trainees has become regular occurrence, forcing the aviation unions to protest several times in the past.by aviation unions.
Aside from the annual training, some Aviation Safety Inspectors are nominated for aircraft surveillance for operators who acquired aircraft and wish to bring it to Nigeria. After the inspection, they are issued Certificate of Airworthiness.
Inspectors are also sent to organisations where airlines send their aircraft for maintenance abroad. After the inspection, the organisation is issued Approved Maintenance Organization (AMO).
For the inspections and other surveillance activities carried out abroad, the operator would pay NCAA a statutory fee as well as cater for their feeding, flight ticket and hotel.
The payments are made into NCAA dollar-funded domiciliary accounts with Standard Chartered Bank UK, First Bank Ltd (UK) and another account held with JPMorgan Chase Bank.
It is only when an operator had made these payments that inspectors would be nominated to travel for the assignment.
But a source alleged that the NCAA management no longer pays Inspectors their estacodes before they travel even when the airline operator had paid NCAA for the services.
THE WHISTLER obtained a memo addressed to the National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers dated 10th June, 2022, where the NCAA tried to explain why it failed to pay estacodes to aviation safety inspectors assigned official duties outside Nigeria.
The memo with number : NCAA/DG/GC/816/461, which emanated from the office of the DG, NCAA, Captain Musa S. Nuhu blamed the delay on a “new policy from the body (Central Bank of Nigeria) saddled with the processing, payment and management of the nation’s foreign reserves and we are bound to adhere.”
The memo said the CBN Trade Exchange Department had introduced new requirements for processing and payment of foreign exchange through the e-Form ‘A’ on the Trade Monitoring System platform with respect to estacodes, PTA/BTA, education and other remittances.
In a memo (NAAPE/23/NCAA-03) dated 19th April 2023, NAAPE wrote the NCAA to remind the DG that as at April 2023, the estacodes and duty tour allowance of the inspectors had not been paid despite submitting their flight tickets to DFA prior to their travel on official assignments and training outside Nigeria.
“To make matters worse, some of these Aviation Safety Inspectors who took the burden of funding these assignments or training from their personal purse or from borrowed funds were either paid two to three months after returning from their trips or have not been paid at all.
“At the moment, some of our members that returned from their 2022 foreign trainings months ago have not been paid till date,” the memo added.
NAAPE said that it carried out an investigation and found that the claim by the NCAA that the delays were as a result of a new CBN policy was false.
“CBN’s Policy of submitting confirmed flight tickets before accessing Foreign Exchange through Form A of the Trade Monitoring System (TMS) is only applicable to travellers that wish to obtain PTA/BTA from the banks. It is NOT required for payment of estacodes for the public sectors. During the process of filling out Form A for estacodes, Travel Information section is not even displayed for completion, unlike other categories—source: CBN Trade Monitoring User Guide.
“Thus, NAAPE is very concerned about why the NCAA Staff in DFA have repeatedly requested for confirmed ticket information as pre-requisite for payment of estacodes.”
However, the NCAA in an internal memo issued by its Finance Department on July 24, 2023 and signed by Abubakar Gochi, Director of Finance and Accounts unveiled the new requirements for payment of estacodes. They include Bank Verification Number, return e-ticket with the number, valid visa, valid international passport, e-mail address, house address, phone number and immigration stamp pages for trips already embarked.
“Please find attached, the list of outstanding payment vouchers pending due to the absence of flight tickets and visa pages. You are required to provide the required documents as highlighted in the
attached documents. These are required subsequently in all estacode payments,” the memo reads in part.
Another document obtained by THE WHISTLER claimed that the domiciliary accounts held by NCAA with Standard Chartered Bank UK, First Bank Ltd (UK) and JPMorgan Chase Bank are fully funded, adding that, “since the accounts are domiciled with foreign banks, payments are usually made
to inspectors (and other recipients) using the MT 103 (standard SWIFT-payment message used for cross border/international wire transfer).
“All available CBN publications on international money transfers do not contain any requirement for BVN and confirmed flight ticket to be provided as pr-requisite for estacode payment international money transfers.”
The document said the investigation team set up by the staff found that other government agencies that do not have dollar-funded domiciliary accounts do not ask staff to submit flight tickets and immigration stamps before paying estacode.
The source explained that “Despite the fact that those were not CBN requirements for processing estacodes, these staff go all out to provide these documents. However, the NCAA will still not pay them before going out.
“If you ask someone to provide you with an immigration stamp in/stamp out pages, means you are asking them to travel and return before you would even consider paying them. This is because immigration will only stamp out someone in their passport while traveling outside the country and then stamp them in when they return to the country.
“Also, on the issue of flight tickets, it is supposed to be provided by the NCAA and not by the staff. So, staff are asking why NCAA would ask them to provide them with copies of their flight tickets before they would be paid.”
When the Public Relations Officer of the NCAA, Mrs Carol Adekotujo, was contacted she rejected the call twice. She failed to respond to a message sent to her WhatsApp which was delivered and read by 2:36 PM. She also did not reply several reminders that were sent to her.