Projects to automate safety equipment at four international airports in Nigeria have been billed to cost N13bn.
The Federal Executive Council during a virtual meeting on Wednesday approved the N13bn for the automation of safety equipment at Lagos, Kano, Abuja, and Port Harcourt international airports.
The meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari also approved $3.1bn for the automation of the operations of the Nigeria Customs Service.
Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, said the safe tower projects, when completed, would increase efficiency and reduce the workload of air controllers in the affected airports.
“Today, civil aviation submitted a memorandum to the council which was consequently approved. The memo is to upgrade and refurbish the safe tower equipment in four airports, Lagos, Kano, Abuja, and Port Harcourt.
“This is just to increase the efficiency of the airports and reduce the workload in the control tower and to automate what was hitherto analog system to digital,” he told journalists after the meeting.
According to Sirika, with the automation of the safety equipment, all data collected at the end of the runways within the airports would be displayed instantly on the control tower platform.
He explained, “Information regarding weather, all the components of weather, winds, rain, macroburst, etc will be displayed automatically.
“So, the issue of giving out weather reports every hour will change to give you instant weather which will improve the pilot efficiency, and the workload on the controller is reduced and it can handle more flights into the airport.”
Giving a breakdown of the money, Sirika stated, “The first component, which is a foreign component, is €28,489,565 while the naira component is N3,491,504,488.31. Of course, there will be 7.5 per cent added VAT. It will be for the complete period of 12 months.”
