Foreign airlines face legislators’ audit over Nigerians in their employment

By Sade Williams/business a.m.

The Nigerian legislature, through the House of Representatives Committee on Aviation, is to carry out an ‘audit’ of foreign airlines operating into the country to find out how many Nigerians they have in their environment, such as cabin staff and technical crew including pilots and engineers.

Nnolim Nnaji, chairman of the house committee, stated that the audit would be done through the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, (NCAA), adding that, “if it is discovered that Nigeria is being shortchanged in any way we will not allow it.”

Nnaji, in a statement in Abuja said, “the parliament would also be interested in finding out the percentage of their tickets that are sold by local travel agents and at what commission.”

He noted that the country has been over generous to the airlines with unrestricted access to the Nigeria travel market which they must reciprocate by engaging indigenous pilots, engineers and licensed cabin crew into their technical staff.

“Most of the foreign airlines are granted multiple entries points into the country, so as representatives of the people we will be interested in knowing how such gestures reflect in our economy and labour force

“It is equally important that we know the percentage of their tickets that are sold by our local agents so that we ensure that what obtains in other climes are the same here,” Nnaji further stressed.

The House committee chairman emphatically stated that if it was found out that the foreign airlines were not engaging Nigerians as part of their technical and cabin crew, the committee would seek to correct it so that young Nigerian professionals could be employed.