Nigeria Starts Dismantling Its Plane 'Graveyard' The Associated Press Jan 31, 2013, 10:18 AM Workers have begun dismantling the abandoned airplanes left to rot at airports across Nigeria, a nation with a troubled history of crashes and mismanaged airlines. The work has started in Lagos at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, where passengers coming into Africa's most populous nation have long seen the abandoned planes when landing there. Henry Omeogu, director of airport operations for the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, said Thursday that he hopes workers will dismantle all the aircraft within the coming weeks. Omeogu estimated there are at least 65 abandoned planes at Nigeria's airports, ranging from small jets to a massive Boeing 747 in the northern city of Kano. The work comes as Nigeria struggles to overcome a past filled with airline disasters and corruption in the aviation sector.
Thursday 31 January 2013
Wednesday 30 January 2013
Sunday 27 January 2013
Monday 21 January 2013
Self-regulation working well for SA transport industry
Self-regulation working well for SA transport industry The self-regulation system as stipulated in the Road Transport Management System (RTMS) is proving to be a very effective tool for South African truck and bus operators in managing fleets efficiently and cost-effectively, with many case studies to back up the success of the roll-out. “RTMS, which has been in operation since 2003 and is finding growing support among fleet operators, continues to show outstanding results since implementation and supports the Department of Transport’s National Road Freight Strategy as the fourth pillar in the action plans,” comments the chairman of the RTMS national committee, Adrian van Tonder, of Barloworld Logistics. “Currently there are 2 674 trucks and 395 buses (the Buscor fleet) from 68 company depots carrying the RTMS accreditation logo, with a quantum leap in participation having occurred in the past 24 months,” adds Van Tonder. RTMS is an industry-led, government supported, voluntary self-regulation scheme that encourages consignees and road transport operators to implement a management system – a set of standards – that demonstrates compliance with the Road Traffic Regulations. It also contributes to preserving the road infrastructure, improving road safety, ensuring driver health and wellness as well as improving productivity Hino, one of South Africa’s leading truck manufacturers, is giving its full support to assisting with the roll-out of RTMS. Hino uses its nationwide dealer network as an important catalyst to spread the good news and benefits of using the system to its customers and then assisting them with the implementation. “We at Hino see the RTMS as a very important initiative in creating responsible truck operators who show concern for the roads and environment while focusing strongly on fuel saving,” says Hino SA vice president, Dr Casper Kruger. “Our support for the RTMS has already extended to our dealers and we are sponsoring a series of successful and well-attended information-sharing sessions throughout the country to promote this programme. “We then encourage our dealers to keep up the momentum by following up with the transport operators who are not on the system to take up the challenge and assist them in developing a strategy to meet all the requirements,” adds Kruger. “The development of the RTMS flowed over from initiatives by the timber industry in KwaZulu-Natal at the beginning of the 21st century to combat overloading, which causes damage to roads while also contributing to cutting the number of accidents involving trucks,” explains Adrian van Tonder. “The KwaZulu-Natal project was known as LAP – the Load Accreditation Programme – and was also self-regulatory. This concept was expanded with the addition of driver health, compliance with road traffic regulations and all aspects of road safety to establish the basis for RTMS standards.” Driving forces in those early days included Paul Nordegen, Oliver Naidoo and Andrew Kriek and they formed a steering committee in 2006 to give momentum to the initiative. There is now a more formalised RTMS national committee made up of representatives of a host of stakeholder organisations and associations that is now driving the project forward. Current chairman Adrian van Tonder came aboard in 2009 and is extremely enthusiastic about this initiative.
Friday 18 January 2013
Wednesday 9 January 2013
June comes quickly. And we wait'
Fashola promises to deliver Lagos light rail June http://pmnewsnigeria.com/2013/01/08/fashola-promises-to-deliver-lagos-light-rail-june/
MMIA: Nigeria’s open sore
MMIA: Nigeria’s open sore JANUARY 8, 2013 BY NIYI AKINNASO (NIYI@COMCAST.NET) 20 COMMENTS | credits: Bennett Omeke ven if you have no business at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria’s premier airport, you must have a stake in the central message of this essay. Put quite simply and straight, the airport is a symbol of all that is wrong with Nigeria, especially poor leadership, corruption, and inadequate infrastructure. It is Nigeria’s “open sore”, to borrow a phrase from Prof. Wole Soyinka’s The Open Sore of a Continent, in which Nigeria is used to demonstrate the ills of African states. The failure of successive Nigerian leaders to sustain the high standards expected of the airport as an international airport (modelled after Amsterdam’s Schipol International Airport) parallels the failure of African leaders to maintain high standards for African states and their institutions. In Soyinka’s book, the gradual decline of the Nigerian state into anarchy under Sani Abacha was portrayed as a systemic social, economic, and political cancer that grew from the early days of independence until it gradually enveloped the entire state. So has it been with the famed airport, named after the late Head of State, Gen. Murtala Muhammed, although on a rather different scale. What makes the MMIA’s case particularly significant is its role as the premier front door, which lets insiders out and outsiders in. Whatever bad experience outsiders have at the door is a blemish on all insiders. Against the above background, this essay is structured within two frames. The outer frame is provided by the Federal Government and its Ministry of Aviation, the institution responsible for the supervision, security, and maintenance of the nation’s airports. Between the two, the MMIA has suffered untold mismanagement and neglect over the years. It must be acknowledged that the airport has undergone changes and expansion since its modest beginnings during World War II. Named variously as Ikeja Airport, Lagos International Airport, and, from 1978, Murtala Muhammed International Airport, it served as the hub for the West African Airways Corporation between 1947 and 1958 and for the defunct Nigeria Airways between 1958 and 2003. Nigeria Airways began its decline in the mid-1980s, only a few years after the government took over its management from KLM. Plagued by mismanagement, corruption, and a poor safety record, its fleet declined from a peak of 30 aircraft to just three, two of which were leased. At its closure in 2003, the airline’s debt had exceeded $60m. Yet, the reports of several probes into the mismanagement of funds meant for the airline have been shoved aside repeatedly by the government. Like the Nigeria Airways, the MMIA has been a fertile ground of mismanagement and corruption, with telling consequences, including incessant power outages; broken down air-conditioning systems, escalators, and conveyor belts; stinking toilets, stuffy terminals, and unkempt hallways. To be sure, various administrations had embarked on some renovation or remodelling, the vestiges of accumulated rot remained. The result of present efforts by the Jonathan administration is like changing the cooking pot without changing the chef, the ingredients, and the cooking method. Customers keep experiencing the same bad taste. Inside this outer frame is an inner one, provided by two previous essays in The PUNCH by Uche Igwe (December 26, 2012) and Yakubu Dati, General Manager, Corporate Communications, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (January 1, 2013). Drawing upon his experience at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Igwe questions the Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, over the botched reconstruction going on there. He queries the process, quality, and timing of the reconstruction, which pushes passengers out of the arrival and departure halls simultaneously into ad hoc tents. “Anyone who has passed through that experience”, Igwe concludes, “will bear witness that this is either a country that is dysfunctional or a government that is clueless”. Speaking for the agency, Dati puts up a spirited defence of the Minister, citing her courage in earmarking 11 airports for “undergoing reconstruction simultaneously”. But Igwe’s argument is precisely that such a massive undertaking compromises passengers’ convenience, safety, and security. He also queries the government’s involvement in all the projects, wondering if it learnt anything from the new Lagos domestic terminal, MMA2, built by the private sector. My own personal experiences at the MMIA throughout 2012 attest to Igwe’s observations and conclusions. Scaffoldings have been erected at the site of the old Parking Lot at least since 2004. One kind of reconstruction or the other has been going on somewhere inside or around the airport forever, but without appreciable relief to passengers. With Jonathan’s remodelling, the entrance and exit to and fro the airport have become a major hassle. This is particularly true of the approach road to the departure wing where passengers may be trapped for over two hours, leading to missed flights. In the absence of temporary parking near enough to the terminals, passengers often have to be picked up near the Baggage Claim Hall or dropped off near the Ticketing and Check-in Counters. That comes with two dangers: First, towing vehicle operators will hound your vehicle, not necessarily to tow it, but to harass you or your driver into paying some ransom for keeping the vehicle there temporarily. Second, you have to wade through a crowded entrance door into over-crowded ticketing and check-in counters or through a crowded exit door into a huge crowd of fake and genuine taxi drivers and unsolicited touts, who often insist on pushing your luggage-loaded cart to your vehicle or a taxi. Whether you are coming in or going out, you have to watch your luggage with more than two eyes. The relief expected after returning to one’s country is always dampened by the all-around dysfunctionality of the MMIA. It begins with the approach to the airport, where, as one expatriate once put it, “chaos and urban decay come flying at visitors like paper scraps in a windstorm”. The contrast in infrastructure and services at the MMIA and other international airports around the world is even worse. In addition to poor infrastructure, as already described, services are usually shabby. During my last return flight, those who requested wheelchairs had to be assisted down a still escalator into the immigration hall because the wheelchair lift (a rickety one at that) was not readily available. Worse still, the immigration and baggage claim halls were over-crowded. It was only after waiting for our luggage for nearly an hour that a lady came into the hall, shouting, “Delta passengers, go into the next hall for your luggage”. It was a new hall, with power outlets popping out of the terrazzo floor here and there and a make-shift conveyor belt whose circumference was too small to accommodate the passengers. Because it was raining that night, every luggage came in wet, apparently because the conveyor belt opened to the outside wall of the hall, where luggage was physically transferred onto it from the airplane. Apart from immigration officials who appeared to be doing the best they could in the circumstances, many aviation employees were rude, discourteous, and openly asked for bribes, often in some subtle or disguised language, such as “Oga, wetin you bring for us now”? Yet, according to Dati, “deliberate strategies are being deployed to change the orientation of the aviation employees through capacity development”. Such effort has yet to bear fruit. Let me put my final observation in a question form: Why can’t the airport authorities emulate their international counterparts by installing monitors everywhere to provide information, welcoming passengers, apologising for inconveniencing them with ongoing renovations, and directing them to appropriate terminals or gates and service areas at the airport? Is that too much to ask for in this electronic age? You may also like -
Tuesday 8 January 2013
Monday 7 January 2013
Majority of road deaths is due to human behaviour
Majority of road deaths is due to human behaviour
Speaking at the launch of the Festive Season Road Safety Campaign in Pretoria on Sunday, Transport Minister Ben Martins said that the majority of deaths on our roads are caused by irresponsible human behaviour, which highlights the need to educate communities about road safety.
Martins said that 82.2% of deaths on South Africa's roads during the 2010 and 2011 festive seasons were due to the human factor, including speeding, drunken driving, driver fatigue, unroadworthy vehicles and drunken pedestrians.
The minister added that the statistics show that law enforcement officers were not solely responsible for preventing accidents, but that road users themselves have a responsibility to consciously obey the law on the roads.
"Which means we should place more emphasis on education, public awareness and compliance with the law," he said.
"The road safety campaign should therefore become a daily preoccupation and not only during the festive and Easter seasons."
Martins said that as part of the department's attempt to curb road deaths this festive season, it would work closely with, among others, the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC), the Road Accident Fund, the Cross Border Road Traffic Agency and the Road Traffic Infringement Agency.
The RTMC acting CEO, Collins Letsoalo, said it had noted "poor human behaviour" at times when law enforcement officers were not usually on duty.
He mentioned that most fatal accidents occur between 22:00and 06:00 from Thursday nights to Sunday mornings and that the most dangerous road in the country was the R61, on the N6 between the N2 and Oslo Beach, south of Queenstown in the Eastern Cape.
He also believes that head-on collisions as a result of drivers falling asleep at the wheel would be the main cause for fatal accidents this festive season.