The Minister of State, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, says a lot of work has to be done to upgrade the departure area of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos.
A statement by the Acting General Manager, Public Affairs, Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mrs Herrienta Yakubu on Wednesday in Lagos, quoted the minister as speaking during her one-day tour of the airport facilities.
The minister, according to the statement, also highlighted problems in luggage handling at the airport, and said they should be addressed.
“The luggage handling process is very problematic. It is largely manual and as a result of that, customers spend hours before getting their luggage.
“That needs to be addressed,” Ahmed is quoted as saying.
The minister, however, expressed satisfaction with the state of the arrival hall of airport.
She noted that there had been an upgrade of the facilities and commended FAAN for improving the travelling experience of passengers.
“The reason why we are here is to inspect the projects under FAAN. The essence of this is to see how well government’s resources are utilised.
“We are also here to see and understand the challenges that the airport is facing, so that when resources are to be allocated or disbursed, we will do it with the understanding of how they are to be used.
“We have seen a number of projects at different levels of completion. We have seen a lot of good work that has been done. There are some projects that are suffering as a result of number of different challenges.
“We have also seen the upgrade of the airport that shows an improvement in users’ experience, especially on the arrival of the MMIA,” she is quoted as saying.
The minister, according to the statement, expressed concern over the low completion rate of some projects, contrary to the report earlier submitted to the ministry.
“On the inspection, we found out that some of the information provided tallies with what we have but some do not.
“We are asking the authority to re-assess them and submit to us the correct state of completion.
“The completion rates of some of the projects were lower than what was reported in the reports,” she is quoted as saying. (NAN)