Minister restructures NCAA, sacks directors

• FG okays reorganisation

Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, has restructured the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), merging some key directorates and sacking their superintending directors.

The Guardian learned that the move to reduce nine directorates to six as part of efforts to enable the apex regulatory body to run more effectively and align with Steve Orosanye’s 2011 report on rationalisation of government parastatals, commissions, and agencies.

The Director-General of NCAA, Capt. Musa Nuhu, yesterday, confirmed that the Federal Government had approved the major shakeup.

The new and retained directorates are Airworthiness Standards (DAWS), Operations, Licensing and Training (DOLT), Air Transport Regulations (DATR), Aerodrome, and Airspace Standards (DAAS), Finance and Accounts (DFA), and the Directorate of Human Resources and Administration (DHR&A).

The Directorate of Consumer Protection was merged with DATR, while that of General Aviation was subsumed under the Directorate of Airworthiness Standards.

Two new directors were appointed by the Federal Government to take charge of the DAWS and DOLT.

The newly appointed Directors, “who are aviation professionals with several decades of industry experience in their areas of expertise in the Aviation Industry”, are Kayode Ajiboye for DAWS and Capt. Elisha Bahago for DOLT.

Nuhu said that the approved restructuring was aimed at repositioning the NCAA for effective and efficient service delivery and also to entrench a robust safety oversight system in line with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) standards and recommended practices while enabling the regulatory body to resolve current and emerging challenges facing the industry.