2nd May, 2012
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Tuesday requested all foreign airlines authorised dealers to submit information on tickets sold in the country in the last 12 years.
Mr. Batari Musa, the Director, Trade and Exchange Department of CBN, said this in a memo to the agents entitled: “Request for information on foreign airlines remittances for the period 1999 to 2011.”
According to him, the required information should cover between January 1999 and December 2011 and should be submitted to the department of the apex bank both in hard and soft copies on or before Thursday.
He urged all the foreign airlines agents to comply with the directive, warning that failure to do so would attract sanctions from the government.
The memo was made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) by a foreign airline agent, who pleaded anonymity.
NAN learnt that various foreign airlines operating in the country repatriated over N222 billion to their home countries in 2011 alone.
NAN reports that a document by the foreign airlines agents had indicated that one airline company, which had been operating in the country for over 70 years, earned N31.5 billion in the year under review.
The document also indicated that other foreign airlines earned between N769 million and N21.5 billion the same year.
The Assistant Secretary of Aviation Round Table, Mr. Taiwo Adenekan, told newsmen that there was no way Nigerian airlines could compete with their foreign counterparts unless they had opportunity to huge capital for investment.
He said that in spite of the high revenues made from ticket sales by the foreign airlines, none of them was investing in the country.