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Closure of bonded warehouses at MMIA may threaten air safety

By BusinessNews Staff on November 30, 2014

Nigerian airlines have raised the alarm over the delay in the clearing of safety critical aircraft parts, which were imported for immediate use on aircraft that have accumulated snags and needed urgent parts replacement.
The airlines said many imported aircraft parts were being locked up at the bonded warehouses owned by the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company Plc (nahco aviance) and the Skyway Aviation Handling Company Limited (SAHCOL) by the Nigeria Customs Service (NSC) due to recent fracas between the later and the clearing agents. Scores of persons sustained injuries during the fight.
Some airline operators said the closure of these warehouses has paralysed freighting activities at the airport and led to daily loss of over N100 million by the handling companies, importers, clearing agents as well as the federal government, which earns a revenue of about N50 million daily from the Lagos cargo terminal.
A top official of one of the nation’s major airlines told THISDAY on Wednesday that Customs should review the cargo that have been locked up since last week and clear very essentials goods like aircraft parts, perishable goods and medicaments that may be sustaining lives at various hospitals.
The official said some aircraft are presently on AOG (aircraft on ground) due to damaged or faulty parts and even some aircraft that have snags (technical problems) may still be managed by airlines that do not have enough aircraft to carry out their schedules and this may give rise to major incidents or accidents.
“Customs should have thought about this. Nowhere in the world that bonded warehouses are shut down for days and even when they are done, the concerned authorities carefully reviews the cargo that are contained therein. We use air freight to import aircraft parts because of the urgency of using them to replace damaged engines and other parts of an aircraft. So if we have bird strike and the aircraft engine is damaged and we imported another engine for the aircraft, you mean that Customs will lock up these engines in those warehouses?
“I know some airlines that have engines at those warehouses.

When you calculate what an airline loses everyday an aircraft is kept on the ground because of damaged engine, you will come to realise the effect of the action taken by the Customs. We understand their position and their demand that security at the cargo terminal should be improved. This is justified and that there should be a check on the influx of people into the terminal is also justified, but they should have sent their inspectors to review the goods in those warehouses and immediately clear the ones that are very essential,” the official said.
The Comptroller of Customs Murtala Muhammed Airport Command (MMAC), Tajudin Olarenwaju told journalists in Lagos that the warehouses would not be opened and the clearing agents would not come back to the airport until proper measures are taken by terminal operators to prevent possible security breaches at the cargo section of the airport.
Olarenwaju said Customs decided to suspend cargo clearing activities, except for perishables, medicaments and diplomatic goods because the terminal operators which include handling companies, allowed unauthorised crowd in restricted areas of the cargo section and there is non-conducive environment for collection of government revenue in line with Customs import procedure.

[ThisDay]

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