Federal Govt Earmarks N36.2bn, $12.9m Investment On Air Safety Equipment

The federal government, through the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), at the weekend, said it had undertaken a holistic approach to improving the country’s airspace by committing N36 billion for the overhaul of the country’s air traffic management system, including the Safe Tower Project (STP).

Speaking in an interactive session with members of the League of Aviation and Airport Correspondents (LAAC), the acting managing director of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Mathew Pwajok, said, included in the STP is the upgrade of the air traffic management system, surveillance system, meteorological system in the four major airports in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano.

Giving a breakdown, he said, the federal government had approved N13 billion for the STP and N23.2 billion for the upgrade of the soft and hardware of the Total Radar Coverage (TRACON).

According to him, aside from that, the upgrade would also occur to nine Monopulse Secondary Surveillance Radars (RSM 970M) to cover Lagos, Kano, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Ilorin, Maiduguri, Talata-Mafara, Numan, and Obubra, saying, it will improve the country airspace surveillance.

He said: “the agency is at the completion stage of its pet project, the Wide Area Multi-lateration (WAM) system, which is a surveillance system to cover Nigeria’s delta region and whose cost was put at $12.9 million. Oil and gas activities are occasioned by a lot of helicopter operations in the Niger Delta and the purpose of WAM is to capture these flight operations that are outside the radar coverage areas in the country.

“This is done for safety and security purposes. Benefits of the system include the provision of low-cost extension of the surveillance coverage for low altitudes and areas where no radar coverage currently exists. Optimisation of surveillance infrastructure through the efficient mix of radar sensors, MLAT and ADS-B; increased airspace safety and capacity by providing separation to aircraft operating in the region.”

The acting MD, however, disclosed that when the project is completed, it would provide additional source of revenue for the agency.

“The project upon completion would provide an additional source of revenue for the agency and MLAT applications, particularly when combined with Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) to provide important operational improvements.

“It will also address some of the limitations of the traditional radar surveillance system, optimize the controller workload and provide benefits in the areas of safety, capacity, efficiency, and environmental impact, thus contributing to the overall Communication, Navigation and Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) objectives,” he pointed out.

He further stated that the maintenance deal between Nigeria and the French communication firm for the multi-billion naira radar for Lagos and Abuja airports have expired and the agency’s engineers have kept the system working.

According to him, the agency’s engineers have also made the air traffic management system seamless for air traffic controllers and pilots.

To him, “lots of money has been saved through that action of our engineers to keep the system running. There had been significant improvement in traffic management with the radar. With this radar, we can see traffic up to Accra, Yaounde, Malabo, and many other places.”