The Society of Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineers (SLAMEN) has challenged the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to deploy its economic audit of the industry by carrying out a thorough analysis of the organisations in the sector, especially the airlines.

SLAMEN said it was pertinent for the regulatory agency in the sector to use the economic audit to determine the continued financial capability of organisations in the sector, especially those companies that owe workers’ salaries for two months at a stretch.

SLAMEN insisted that the continued owing of salaries by some of the operating airlines constituted a very serious safety concern, warning that safety may be relegated to the background by some of its personnel.

Engr. Chukwuka Iloeje, the President of SLAMEN stated these over the weekend in Lagos at the 1st Quarterly General Meeting /General Election of the body.

Iloeje, further appealed to NCAA to increase its enforcement of the provision of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Regulations (NCARs) by carrying out more surveillance as regards the expatriate quota system.

He emphasized that the enforcement of this would prevent the abuse of the expatriate quota by some of the organisations in the sector.

He decried a situation where foreign engineers are employed to perform aircraft maintenance at the expense of qualified personnel, but unemployed.

He said: “We request that the authority uses its economic audit to determine the continued financial capability of organisations that do not pay salaries for two months at a stretch – a serious safety issue.”

Motor Africa, a mobility and IOT infrastructure startup in Nigeria, and OnePipe, a fintech infrastructure provider, have launched lending as a service (LaaS) proposition to help mobility entrepreneurs gain access to working capital in the form of an overdraft to finance car repairs, purchase genuine spare parts, vehicle and personal insurance, smartphones, and cash for personal and family welfare support needs.

The technology, which generates analytical telemetry and remittance income data, assists registered lenders in making informed lending decisions while also managing seamless credit repayments.

Motor Africa, a trading name of envio Logistics Inc., has activated more than 2,000 vehicles already on its platform and is now poised to enable those vehicle owners (who currently use the platform to lease their cars to verified drivers on e-hailing services and local transport services) have access to credit services.

This service manages driver repayments to the vehicle owner and provides car maintenance oversights at partnered workshops.

Sylvester Chude, co-founder and CEO of envio Logistics Inc, who has been an active participant in the mobility industry, stated that cooperating with OnePipe will facilitate automatic payout settlements to vehicle owners and lending partners.

According to Chude, “Commercial transportation is a crucial service for the growth of any economy, and the role of technology and innovation is essential for its success in Africa.” Commercial mobility in Africa is estimated to be $150 billion market according to an article by the AfDB and was expected to grow at 8.5% between 2018 and 2023

The OnePipe CEO and founder says that working with Motor Africa will assist in addressing the challenges African mobility entrepreneurs experience when trying to get working capital financing.

The Motor Africa technology, which is available on the Google Play store and Apple Appstore, allows mobility entrepreneurs to register their vehicles, pay a vehicle and activation fee of N15,000, and have their overdraft wallets instantly credited with N600,000 prior to the vehicle being displayed on the mygarage platform to verified drivers.

The platform is also open to fleet operators who have previously leased cars to drivers providing various mobility services.

In addition, Chude confirmed that the objective of Motor Africa is to facilitate the participation of financial institutions and individuals in funding the car supply gap in order to increase mobility in Africa.

The lending as a service infrastructure, which utilizes hybrid telemetry IOT systems, enables lending partners to create loan products with interest rates and repayment terms, as well as manage credit requests, automatic underwriting, cash disbursement, and repayment collection. (Daily Independent)