Aviation Row: NCAA Opens Up on NAMA’s TSC Cut, Stakeholders Call for Full Probe

The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has revealed that the portion of the Ticket Sales Charge (TSC) allocated to the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) was never meant to be permanent, a temporary fix from NAMA’s founding days that, through oversight, was left without an expiry date.

The disclosure came as aviation stakeholders intensified pressure on the House of Representatives to expand its ongoing hearing into a comprehensive investigation of the five‑per‑cent TSC, from collection and remittance to actual utilisation.

Passengers pay five per cent of the ticket value as TSC, which the NCAA collects and distributes among several agencies: NAMA, the Nigeria Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB), the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), and NiMET. The NCAA retains 46 per cent.

But in an interview with *The Punch*, NCAA Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection, Dr Michael Achimugu, explained that the NCAA is, by ICAO standards, the sole rightful recipient of the charge. NAMA was given a slice only because it had no start‑up funding when it was established in the final days of General Abdulsalami Abubakar’s administration.

“Ordinarily, only the NCAA is supposed to take that money,” Achimugu said. “It was not supposed to be a permanent thing. Nowhere else in the world does the air navigation service provider take money from the regulator.”

He said the hurried push to get NAMA approved before the handover meant the committee that designed the arrangement omitted a “sunset clause”, a legally binding end date. According to Achimugu, former ICAO Council President Bernard Aliu, who was part of the original setup, later confirmed the arrangement was intended to last no more than five years.

“Unfortunately, they forgot to add that clause,” Achimugu added.

What began as a temporary support for NAMA later extended to other agencies. NSIB, then NCAT, were also carved into the sharing formula, steadily eroding the NCAA’s share. Achimugu noted that TSC now accounts for more than 80 per cent of NCAA’s income, while NAMA, in addition to government funding, already earns revenue from 16 different ICAO‑recognised charges.

“NAMA does not offer any service directly to the passenger. The NCAA does,” he said, questioning the logic of the continued allocation.

Meanwhile, the National Aviation Stakeholders Forum (NASF) has urged the House Committee on Aviation to go beyond the sharing formula and conduct a full‑scale probe into the entire TSC lifecycle.

“The issue should not be limited to who gets what percentage. Nigerians deserve to know how much has been collected, how much has been remitted, and what has happened to the funds,” said NASF National Coordinator Yahaya Yusuf.

The forum also proposed a real‑time, technology‑driven platform to track ticket sales and TSC remittances, arguing that such a system would close loopholes, detect discrepancies, and restore public confidence.

NASF did not spare the NCAA’s Director‑General, Capt. Chris Najomo, accusing him of failing to intervene before the dispute triggered last week’s industrial action, which grounded flights and stranded passengers across the country.

The forum called for Najomo’s resignation, insisting that the regulator should have prevented the escalation. However, it commended the National Assembly and the Federal Government for their interventions that helped restore normal operations.

The forum urged lawmakers to use the current review to establish a transparent and accountable framework for managing the TSC, preventing future disputes from paralysing the sector and ensuring that passengers are not made to pay the price for regulatory lapses.