Barely a few days after the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) kicked off the implementation of its new cashless collection system at airport toll gates in the country, President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday directed the immediate suspension of the system following traffic gridlocks at the toll gates, which caused many passengers to miss their flights.
The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, said the President gave the order during the Federal Executive Council’s (FEC’s) meeting at the State House, Abuja.
According to him, Tinubu directed an immediate return to the cash collection regime at the airport toll gates while efforts are being made to adopt a more efficient system
The minister explained: “Mr. President was very concerned about the welfare of Nigerians and the fact that most Nigerians were losing their flights, missing their flights.
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“So Mr. President, out of empathy, directed today that we should suspend the present system because it creates a lot of gridlock, and Nigerians are suffering as a result of it..
“The major reason why Mr. President took this decision is to eliminate the present gridlock that we are experiencing, especially at both the Lagos and Abuja toll gates leading to the airport.
“That’s the major reason, not that the President is happy with the cash system”, he added
Keyamo disclosed that the President directed his ministry to go back aand develop a more efficient digital payment system and that this should not take too long and that he should give him feedback on the issue as soon as possible.
The minister expatiated: “In fact, the President directed me that this should not take too long. It should not take too long, and I should get back to him on this issue.
“We should go back and, if possible, even engage the private sector to ensure that we establish an electronic system by which we can collect these revenues for the federal government at the gates, to the extent that it will not create the gridlock that we are having right now,” the minister stated.
“We are going to do a hybrid system whereby we can collect cash temporarily and, of course, use the cards that they have collected temporarily for now”, Keyamo added.
The minister hinted that in order to comply with the President’s directive, his ministry would engage private sector participants to develop a more efficient payment system that eliminates cash at the gates without causing traffic congestion.
He explained that Tinubu said if the ministry has to pay commission to the private sector participants, it should pay to help the ministry devise a much more efficient payment system that will still eliminate cash at the airport toll gates.
It would be recalled that the FAAN announced the introduction of the cashless system few days ago as part of its plans to optimise revenue collection at toll gates operated.
However, the test-run of the cashless system has resulted in serious traffic congestion at the airport access roads, particularly at the Lagos and Abuja airports, which handle the highest traveller traffic among the federal airports in the country.
