By Gbemiga Olamikan
The Chief Executive Officer of Ministry of Finance Incorporated, MOFI, Dr. Armstrong Takang has indicated that, MOFI has interest in supporting Ministry of Aviation’s efforts in airport development and modernization, including upgrading existing infrastructure and constructing new airports where necessary.
He emphasized that introducing innovative aviation technologies would enhance safety, efficiency, and customer experience in the aviation sector and that MOFI would like to collaborate with all relevant agencies and companies to facilitate the use of such technologies and make them available to the wider Nigerian aviation industry. He said, this would help to effectively support various economic activities, such as tourism, agriculture, government, and business travelers in all airports.
Dr. Armstrong Takang disclosed this during a visit to Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika to discuss areas of collaboration and partnerships between the two organizations as he further called on the Aviation Minister to assist in actualizing President Mohammadu Buhari’s agenda of assets, investments managements and optimal risk-adjusted returns, following recent approval to create a National Asset Register, NAR, by the President Buhari. He also stated that Ministry of Aviation represents one of the biggest supervisors of Nigeria’s assets through its sister agencies, Dr Takang reiterated the need for sustainable partnership to support sundry economic activities in the airports.
The MOFI team has been mandated by Mr. President to create a comprehensive National Asset Register (NAR) by aggregating, profiling, and managing all national assets and investments, the NAR will be harnessed to strengthen our fiscal and economic realities and the optimization of our investments and assets.
As a result, the MOFI team emphasized that it is key that all assets of the Ministry of Aviation are captured and added to the NAR and sought the assistance of the Minister for the actualization of the vision of the Federal government to properly manage its assets and investments and ensuring that FGN derives optimal risk-adjusted returns from its investments and assets.
The MOFI team revealed that the development and modernization of the country’s airports are crucial for socio-economic development and that the Ministry had made positive improvements, they believe that more capital investment was required to attract more passengers, cargo movement, and facilitate trade. The MOFI delegation assured Minister of their strong interest and unwavering support for the growth and expansion of Nigerian airlines by exploring ways in which they can provide financing and investments for airlines to expand their fleets, enhance their services, and compete on the global stage. However, Minister of aviation Hadi Sirika who is also a member of the MOFI governing council commended the new board of MOFI and gave assurances that MOFI would be included in the national aviation road-map in no distant time.
He said “we have the concession of the airport, we have the airlines, we have the cargo, we have the MRO, we have the leading company and those are the legs of the road-map which after the press, we will go through them and ensure that MOFI is integral to these plans”. He said “the Ministry remains committed to ensuring that President Buhari’s mandates are adequately delivered”.
