The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has advised the public and all aviation stakeholders to disregard the misguided attempt to discredit statistical data emanating from the authority.
Mr Sam Adurogboye, the General Manager, Public Relations, NCAA, gave the advice on Thursday in Lagos.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that some online media reports had recently alleged discrepancies in the annual figures released by NCAA.
Adurogboye said that NCAA stands by its statistics.
He said: “The figures were verifiable and harmonised by all relevant aviation parastatals, government agencies and handling companies.
“It is, therefore, important for the public to be aware that there is a disparity between NCAA’s data collection basis and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).
“In addition, five per cent Ticket Sales Charge (TSC) is not based on the total tickets sold, but only on flown tickets.
“On the other hand, FAAN computes its Passenger Service Charge (PSC) on all categories of passengers flying through the airport.
“Furthermore, five per cent TSC applies to all tickets originating from Nigeria with the exclusion of Diplomats, tickets sold offshore, infants tickets and staff tickets.
“These are all classified as non-taxable tickets.”
Adurogboye further noted that tickets sold by the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA) and airlines do not translate to taxable tickets “until it is utilised by the passenger’’.
“The authority hereby states categorically that there is no consultant(s) commissioned to collect its revenue on its behalf.
“Payments have since been automated, while the processing and data analysis for both international and domestic airlines are handled by NCAA staff.
“The automation process is a transparent system that obtains billable data directly from the reservation system of the airlines,” he said.
According to him, on the international route, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) is responsible for billing and collection of revenue which is remitted into NCAA TSA account.
Adurogboye said: “This is the global practice as charged by member states (airlines) to ensure coherent fare structure to prevent exploitative and monopolistic tendencies of the airlines.
“The NCAA, therefore, wishes to assure Nigerians that our statistical data undergoes due diligence and the integrity can be ascertained before it is published.” (NAN)