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Nigeria clears $600m trapped funds belonging to foreign airlines

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Nigeria clears $600m trapped funds belonging to foreign airlines

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) on Tuesday announced that Nigeria has cleared the $600 million trapped funds belonging to foreign airlines operating in the country.

The Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of IATA, Alexandre de Juniac, made the disclosure at the 74th IATA Annual General Meeting and World Air Transport Summit in Sydney, Australia.

The funds were airlines’ ticket sales and other allied activities which the country could not repatriate due to fall in crude oil earnings, causing foreign exchange shortages in late 2016 and early 2017.

According to De Juniac, “we have had some recent success. The 600 million dollars backlog in Nigeria has been cleared. And we have made 120 million dollars of progress from a peak of over 500 million dollars in Angola.

“I encourage the government of Angola to work with airlines to help to reduce this backlog further.”

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While the IATA boss commended Nigeria and Angola for the strides in clearing the backlogs, he called on governments yet to clear theirs to abide by international agreements and treaty obligations to enable the airlines to repatriate their funds.

According to a statement on the IATA website, the airlines’ funds remained blocked in 16 countries, totalling $4.9bn globally at the end of 2017, which was seven per cent lower than the 2016 figure.

“The top five markets with blocked funds are Venezuela, where airlines have been unable to repatriate $3.78bn; Angola, where approximately $386m remains blocked; Sudan, where $170m is blocked; Bangladesh, where $95m is blocked; and Zimbabwe, where $76m is blocked,” he added.

 

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