By Uche Mbah
Private Jet owners are currently in the eye of the storm as the Federal Government has, in their bid to recoup money from the billionaires heavily indebted to the FG due to deliberate defaults in their staturtory Import duties, moved against them.
There has been a marked proliferation of private jets in the country, so much so that marriages among the high and mighty are always an opportunity to showcase hundreds of jets which dot the Airports.
Meanwhile the commercial Aviation sector has been under the burden of alleged mismanagement and unreliability.
Most of the private jets hardly pay import and other sundry duties. In fact, at least N30 billion are estimated to be owed by their owners, who cut across religious leaders, business executives, including Bank CEOs, Oil Moguls, and celebrities.
In the bid to recover some of these duties, the Federal Government has instructed Aviation Agencies to ground defaulting aircrafts.
To this effect, The National Airspace Management Agency, NAMA; the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, and the Nigerian Customs Service, NCS, have been given marching orders to effect the debt recovery.
Federal Government, steeped deep in borrowed money, and appearing to receive more and more cold shoulders from international donor agencies, has been looking inwards towards local revenue generation.
It has experimented with Value added Tax, borrowed from pension funds, and manipulated the banking system to raise more money for running of recurrent expenditures. This is the latest of such local revenue drives.
In letters ordrering the grounding of 91 of such defaulting aircraft sent to the NCAA, and copies sent to both the NAMA and FAAN, the the Federal Government demanded indefinite grounding of the affected aircrafts until they offset their bills.
Titled “Recovery of Aviation Import Duty on Privately Owned Aircraft operating in the country”, the letter reads in part:
“The Federal Government in its drive for enhanced revenues has mandated the Nigerian Customs Service to ommediately recover from defaulting Private aircraft owners the required statutory import duties on their imported aircraft.
“You may wish to recall the verification exercise conducted by the CS, initially scheduled for a 14 day period, but magnanimously extended over a sixty day period from 7th June through 6th August 2021. The outcome of the aforementioned verification exercise is a compilation of all private aircraft imported into the country without payment of statutory import duty.”
Quoting relevant sections of the Cutoms and Excise Act, the letter says that the full cooperation of the Agencies are required ”to ensure the success of this initiative and that all such private aircraft owners or representatives are denied administrative and operational flight clearances indefinitely, until an NCS issued Aircraft Clearance Certificate is procured and presented to your organisation as proof of compliance.
“For the avoidance of doubt, ALL aircraft operated in accordance with the Nigeria Civil Authority’s regulation for the issuance of permits for non commercial flight and those issued with flightoperations clearance certificate and maintainance clearance certificate accordingly are affected by this directive.
“Please find attached the list of all verified aircraft and indeed others of the Nigerian Civil aviation Authority’s register, which may not have come foreward for your record and necessary action. Strict compliance with this Directive is to be ensured.”
Then followed a list of 91 aircraft under scrutiny.
This Magazine found out that some of the affected Aircraft owners have protested that their aircraft do not qualify to pay such duties, because they are on wet lease. But the NCS insisted that beyond their complaints lie fraudulent documentations to evade the proper import documentations.
Following the directive, the Aviation authorities have, however, allegedly given counter directives asking the Aviation Agencies to suspend the grounding of the Aircraft pending directives from the Ministry.
This tends to lend credence to the rumor that there appears to be a rift within the Presidency, with dfferent Ministries making decicions without regards to a central body.
“It appears that each arm of the Presidency takes independent decisions, and guards its own territories jealously. This results in alleged flexing of muscles when other agencies tend to encroach in their territories”, says a source within one of the Aviation Agencies.
His allegation may seem to be correct as this magazine has also been told that the NCS has allegedly been given a marching order to impound the defaulting aircraft without recourse to the Ministry’s position.
