FG may liquidate Dana Air to refund passengers trapped funds, others – Keyamo
Agency Report
The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo has said that the federal government may go after the assets of Dana Air to refund trapped funds of passengers and airline travel agents.
At a stakeholder meeting in Abuja on Tuesday, the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) also granted approval to Owerri, Enugu, Yola and Ilorin airports to operate till 10 pm.
The approval came after calls by stakeholders to increase time for flight operations into other airports other than Abuja and Lagos airport.
The Minister also directed the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to fashion out ways to ensure passengers are refunded their monies.
Keyamo, speaking on why the Authority suspended the operations of the airline, he revealed that the suspension was a choice between safety and disaster.
He said “For Dana, the problem is that it was a choice between safety and disaster. So, we didn’t take the commercial thing as priority. The priority was safety and we all looked at the damning reports that we met on the table.
“It was a decision of the NCAA to suspend them but I pushed them to say, look, this is the reports we are seeing on the table about safety record, about lack of standards that puts the lives of Nigerians at risk. If they continue flying, I don’t know whether most of us will be here. Many of us would have been victims of one of those flights. God forbid.”
According to him, “I have asked Najomo to dig deep to find out how those passengers and agents will be refunded. He has to dig deep on that.
“One solution will also be that if that same individual or those entities are trying to come back to aviation under any guise, whether to go and register a new AOC or use any business within aviation sector, they have to go and settle their debts first.
“We should look at their assets. There are assets that are still available. Let them sell their assets. Let’s cannibalize their revenue and pay people. Let’s find a way to go after their assets and get money to pay Nigerians who are owed,” he said.
