17/08/2013

FG Hands Tanker Drivers 48hrs Ultimatum to Relocate from MMIA

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Murtala Muhammed International Airport

The Federal Government has handed down a forty eight hour ultimatum to Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) along the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) access road to relocate their vehicles from the airport environment or face being sanctioned.
The Regional Manager, South, West, Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mr. Edward Olarerin who disclosed this yesterday at a stakeholders meeting held at the conference room of MMIA said the need to relocate the drivers became imperative due to the dangers the present location posed to the airport community.
The meeting which had in attendance FAAN management team, the Nigerian Police Force, Air Force, Aviation Security, and Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), MMIA branch was held to find a lasting solution to the security threat posed by the location of the tankers.
Olarerin said the present location of the vehicles which has tank farms and trucks parked close to the airport constituted the highest threat to the environment and communities around  adding that it could become a ready tool in the hands of terrorist who might be planning to use it as a weapon of mass destruction.
He said the Authority has provided an alternative park for them to relocate, adding that work to cordon off their present site would commence Monday next week.
“When we went to Abuja, I am talking about the presidency now; we were given directive before the last meeting that we must move everybody out of that place.
“This is an instruction from Abuja and coupled with the transformation that is going on in all the airports now. We appreciate the fact that if the pipelines were working there would have been no need for the tankers to be there in the first place but because you have to take aviation fuel directly from the depot to the airport we had to allow them because we have to make sure that aviation fuel is available.
“That is why you have the tankers there. They are supposed to be very few, where you have six marketers that could not require more than six vehicles at a particular time. We now have tankers that are not supposed to be here at all, that are not meant for the airport, that are not Jet A1 tankers coming to the airport."

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