CHIEF Executive Officer CopterJet International, Captain Victor Toluwa Olorunyomi has advocated speedy aviation development in Nigeria stressing that one way to achieve that is to surmount the challenge of poor access to sustainable financing as the problem with indigenous airlines in the country is a mismatch between operational incompatibility and financing.
Speaking at the stakeholder’s forum and launch of CopterJet, he also stated that poor corporate governance also needs to be addressed by local airlines as a combination of the earlier factors and this are bound to ensure failure of any airline.
According to him,the industry needed economic benefits including job creation and that can only be achievable with flourishing domestic airlines.
He said, “Taking a cursory view of our local airlines, one problem is found to be common to airline failures. This is operational incompatibility and financing mismatch. Adding poor corporate governance to these, an airline is bound to fail.
“As Africa really waits for Nigeria to lead the rapid growth in the aviation industry projected for the continent over the next 10 years, it is crucial that we move swiftly as a nation to take up our proper place in the aviation business in Africa. In order to do that, the challenge of poor access to sustainable financing channel needs to be addressed.
“Action is needed to trigger the catalytic impact through job creation and the overall economic benefits derivable from robust aviation value-chain. The existence of flourishing local airlines is a key element of this. Given this reality, the availability of the right blend of financing arrangement, particularly access to low cost capital is quite imperative.”
Captain Olorunyomi also called for concerted effort to make the industry attractive enough for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) stating that great things will happen when the industry teams up.
He said,”We consider it pertinent that strategic and concerted efforts should be maintained at all levels through public-private-partnerships to enhance the state of the aviation industry and make it highly attractive for FDI, unlock its unique values – being a critical economic enabler for the economy as a whole, while positioning it for infrastructure growth and economic transformation.”
“Most certainly, great things are bound to happen to Nigeria’s aviation industry as we decide now to team up. I therefore use this medium to crave the indulgence of all stakeholders with whom we have shared our vision to please stand up to the clarion call for jointly extracting values for all industry stakeholders and achieving national prosperity.”
