The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) is set to dump collection of revenue in cash to plug leakages through which huge sums of money are lost annually. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the development comes in the wake of cases of alleged under-invoicing by staffers to airlines as well as accumulation of ``bad debts''. The Managing Director of Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mr Richard Aisuebeogun announced the measure in an interview with NAN today in Lagos. He said the move to a cashless system of revenue collection was imperative to save the organisation from fraudsters.
``We need to ensure that people do not carry cash and staff of FAAN are not exposed to cash business activities anymore," Aisuebeogun said. He said the move to a cashless system which is already instituted largely in aeronautical section, would move to cover non-aeronautical sources.
``As I speak to you now, it is obvious in another couple of weeks, non-aeronautical revenue will also be on the Maervis/UNISYS InfoTech platform. The Maervis/UNISYS Airport Operations Management System (AOMS), a private/public partnership project for revenue collection, was launched in August by the Minister of Aviation, Mr Felix Hyat.
``Once we are able to capture clearly aeronautical and non-aeronautical revenue, we should improve revenue generation and block all loopholes and leakages,'' he said. Aisuebeogun spoke as unease persists among staffers of FAAN on the new development which many of them claim, is not the best for the organisation. However, the managing director dismissed such fears. ``Right now as I speak, Maervis has been able to capture 90 per cent of our aeronautical revenue,'' he said.
Statistics made available to NAN indicates that in the first seven months of this year, out of a revenue of about N7.1 billion and $2.8million generated by FAAN, only N353.1million and $74.200 were collected on schedule by FAAN staffers. The rest were left to debt recovery efforts. In the last two months when the I.T platforms were used to capture funds, out of a revenue of N1.5 billion and $822.600, N1.1billion and $165.700 was collected. The shortfall was attributable to domestic airlines yet to be integrated into the system.
