The Minister of Aviation, Malam Isa Yuguda who revealed this to the press in Abuja, explained that government established NCAT in 1964 as a training institution for skilled manpower for the aviation sector.

According to him, the money which is to be drawn from the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) funds would be released this year to be wholly injected into equipment upgrade and replacement in line with the total rehabilitation plan for the college.

Malam Yuguda, explained that as part of measures to ensure timely implementation of council approval and in line with constitutional obligation, he said, his ministry has requested the National Assembly to ratify the utilization of the approved funds for the execution of these projects from this financial year to 2007.

Moreover, he stated that preparations have commenced in earnest with the constitution of a technical committee to liaise with a company to examine the colleges training aircraft which currently used AVGAS that is globally in short supply.

“In line with industrial trend, my ministry wishes to explore the opportunity of exchanging these obsolete aircraft with a modern aircraft that uses Jet-A1-fuel, which is readily available and thus more economical to maintain,” he said.

The minister further said, as part of efforts towards repositioning the college for service efficiency, President Obasanjo, last year, granted approval for the college to join the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO’s) Training Air programme.

One of the major benefits of joint organisation, he said, is to allow the college curriculum to be set by the ICAO in line with other civil aviation training institutions.

This, he added, would enable the college source instructors direct from the organisation for courses that local faculty is either not available or inadequate.