ICAO AUDIT: NCAA Determined To Surmount The Hurdles, Emerge Irreprehensible

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In furtherance of Nigeria’s spirited preparation for the impeding audit of the regulatory body’s discharge of its safety oversight, it’s capacity and competencies, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, will this week embark on integrated technical sessions, with the Nigerian Air Safety Management Agency, NAMA, and the Nigerian Meteorological Agency, NiMet.

The Director General, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, Capt Nuhu Shuaibu Musa, made the disclosure in a chat with the aviation and airport correspondents over the weekend.

Capt Nuhu S. Musa, said the NCAA will leave no stone unturned in order to fulfill all righteousness about the safety oversight audit of it’s grip on the entire value chain in the nation’s air transport industry.

He explained the auditors would on arrival check through the records of the regulator to ascertain if it’s oversight functions were done in accordance with the International Civil Aviation Organization’s ICAO’s standards and recommended practices, SARP

Capt Nuhu said that in addition to checking the NCAA’s records to ascertain the actual modes of dispensing it’s oversight functions, the auditors would still visit aviation agencies to affirm how oversight dispensed by NCAA was received and actually given vent by the agencies and the airlines operators.

Hence, he said very critical sessions would be held with all the agencies and selected airlines beginning with NAMA and NiMet this week.

This will no doubt afford the concerned parties opportunity to unearth existing gaps and jointly map out ways and means to close all gaps identified and be made fit for continuously safe, secured and economical air transport operations.

Nuhu however said that, “we are (NCAA) actually complying with what we have in our books and we have made significant progress and there is still some work to be done but we are working on it, we hope in a couple of months before the audit, we will be fully ready”, he promised.

The DG added that, the regulatory body itself, NCAA, had critical self assessment to do. And it will be done with meetings and in house workshops in the week preceding the month of February.

Other very serious sessions will examine the quality of feed back from all these pre audit programs with all the aviation agencies.

He said further that, “in February we will start with the industry, the private sector, we will select the airlines and carry them along on our preparations,” capt Musa S. Nuhu, volunteered.