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ICAO begins security audit of Nigeria’s aviation industry

By BusinessNews Staff on June 2, 2015

A team of International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) auditors arrived Nigeria at the weekend to begin the security audit of the nation airports on what is known as ICAO Universal Security Audit Programme.
The team landed at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport last Saturday and started work yesterday, beginning with the country’s busiest airport in Lagos.
The team, which comprised four members, is expected to look at the areas such as regulatory framework and the National Civil Aviation Security System, training of aviation security personnel, quality control functions and airport operations.
The team would also look at the aircraft and in-flight security, passenger and baggage security, cargo, catering and mail security, response to acts of unlawful interference and security aspects of facilitation.
Members of the team are Karen Zadoyan, Steven Neu, Nuno Miguel Silva Ferreira Fortes and Wendy Mueller.
The objective of the audit is to know whether Nigeria’s airport security status meets the ICAO standard, as the world body had previously certified the country, and would carry out the audit in order to re-certify that Nigeria has maintained and possibly improved the security standard at the airports.
The audit will run for about nine days and terminate is June this year, and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) is the nation’s statutory regulatory authority responsible for the development, implementation and maintenance of National Civil Aviation Security Programme (NCASP).
“In our preparations, adjustments have been made in some areas. These are response to ICAO’s compliance checklist, state aviation security activity questionnaire, state corrective action plan (CAP) and review of all relevant NCAA aviation security documentation which includes the National Civil Aviation Security Programme.
“Others are National Civil Security Training Programme, National Civil Aviation Security Quality Control Programme and Scheduled Inspections, Surveys and Audits of Airports nationwide,” the spokesman of NCAA, Fan Ndubuoke, explained.
The Director General of NCAA, Capt. Muhtar Usman, while speaking on the exercise, said the objective of the audit was to determine a states’ capability for security oversight by assessing the implementation of the critical elements of a security oversight system.
Thereafter, recommendations would be provided for contracting states to improve their security systems and oversight capabilities.
The director general therefore reiterated his call on all stakeholders in the industry to join hands with the authority to ensure another successful outing similar to the preceding audit of ICAO in 2008.

[ThisDay]

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