N5 Billion Covid-19 Fund: Airline Investors Expect More From Nigerian Government – Arik Air CEO naija247news.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from naija247news.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
BUSINESS/Focus
Typical of many government agencies, allegations of mismanagement and impropriety dogged the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria’s previous management boards until the coming of President Muhammadu Buhari with his wide-reaching anti-corruption reforms. One of the earliest appointments he made was that of Ahmed Kuru as the Chief Executive Officer of AMCON. Almost six years after, and a few months into his second term, Kuru’s proficiency in fiscal management and boots-on-the-ground approach to debt recovery has helped in no little way to stabilise the Nigerian economy, writes Lanre Alfred
Unlike the middling marabou, the miracles of Malam Ahmed Kuru, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), aren’t deceptive in nature rather; each one is an event that creates faith in his abilities as a fiscal guru and turn-around-manager. The AMCON boss is not just an administrative managing director but a seasone
Ahmed Kuru
The CEO of Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), Ahmed Kuru, is adding a new varnish to the agency that is both brilliant and unprecedented. With this development in action, AMCON is better equipped to meet its vision of being a “key stabilising and re-vitalising tool in the Nigerian economy.”
AMCON is one of those agencies that hold no scare or value for the average Nigerian, especially those at the lower tiers of the economy. However, for those that interact (in the billions and hundreds of millions) with banks, AMCON is like a cranky and old schoolteacher that is quick with the whip and aiming for delicate parts. Thus, it is nothing of note to read about AMCON seizing one property or the other.
Share
Unless Nigeria’s domestic airlines come together to form a formidable merger, profitability and progressive benefits inherent in airline business globally may continue to elude them.
Reiterating this point at a conference organized by the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), in conjunction with aviation journalists in Lagos on ‘Prevention of human factors in air accident occurrences’, President of Aviation Round Table (ART), Elder Gbenga Olowo, expressed positivism towards the ongoing plans by three more airlines to join the existing domestic carriers across the country.
This came even as he predicted a bleak future for the sector following the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying: “Looking at the outlook, it is not very favourable. It might take us another two, three years to get to 2019 level and if we are expanding, we better expand sensibly and economically; not just say I want to do airline for the sake of doing an airline. That is not it.”
Punch Newspapers
Sections
Okechukwu Nnodim
The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria has reached an advanced stage towards launching a multibillion naira airline by pooling together its aviation assets especially planes in debt-ridden Arik Air and Aerocontactors Airlines, findings by
Sunday PUNCH have revealed.
The new international airline, to be named Nigeria Eagle, may take to the sky with at least 10 planes as early as June, according to insiders who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak on the matter.
AMCON is expected to make an official statement on the deal very soon.
It was learnt that AMCON, a Federal Government-owned bad debt manager which owns controlling stakes in both Arik and Aero, chose to establish the new airline as a clever means of wriggling out of the multibillion naira liabilities currently hanging on the two carriers.