Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo has said that the cashless system introduced by the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) across major airports in the Nigeria has come to stay.
Keyamo stated this when he paid an unscheduled visit at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA) Abuja for an on the spot assessment of the implementation of the hybrid system adopted after president Bola Tinubu suspended the card payments,
The minister, while noting that the hybrid system currently in place was temporary, added that the federal government will soon transition to a fully automated payment system.
Keyamo further revealed that he has directed the officials of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to make the cashless payment option cheaper than cash to incentivise its use.
According to him, “We decided to go back to the drawing boards to see what we can do for now. One, to still make sure we collect revenue. And secondly, to ensure that we ease the traffic. And that is why we came up with this hybrid system now. So for those who have bought the cards before, the cashless cards, that once they buy the cards, it goes straight into TSA, the federation account.
“The people that still have their cards can use them. For those who have not bought and who are not accustomed to the new system, we allow them a very minimal number of people to still use cash until we fully migrate to the cashless system. Look, there is no going back on the cashless system.
“For those who think they can frustrate the cashless system because they like the system of collection of cash, we have passed that stage. In fact, there is a federal government directive effect memo on it saying that no federal agency should ever collect cash. So we have very limited time to do this hybrid system.”
He also disclosed that discussions are ongoing with concessionaires to automate the payment process to curb revenue leakages.