The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority has unveiled the Nigeria’s State Safety Policy Statement.

This policy statement was signed by the Director-General, NCAA, Capt. Muhtar Usman.

The regulatory agency said this was done in compliance with the requirements of the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s Annex 19 on Safety Management, which was adopted by the ICAO Council on February 25, 2013.

It noted that the document, however, became effective on the November 14, 2013.

Chapter 3 of the annex requires each contracting county to establish a state safety programme for the management of safety in that state.

This shall be done in order to achieve an acceptable level of safety performance in civil aviation.

The statement by the Acting General Manager, Public Affairs, NCAA, Mr. Sam Adurogboye, read, “The requirement for a state safety programme recognises that states as well as service providers have safety responsibilities. The SSP, therefore, provides a framework within which service providers are required to establish a safety management system.

“Furthermore, the ICAO Global Aviation Safety Plan recognises the importance of the establishment and maintenance of fundamental safety oversight systems. These are prerequisites to the full implementation of the state safety programme and calls on those states with mature safety oversight systems to progress towards full implementation of the SSP.

“It is required that states that have achieved effective implementation levels of over 60 per cent should fully implement the state safety programme by 2017. Nigeria has achieved 72.1 per cent implementation level during the past ICAO USOAP audit of 2006. This is well above the required implementation level.”

Towards this end, the NCAA said Usman had formally inaugurated an 11-member state safety programme implementation unit on the August 4, 2015.