DOHA, June 19 (Reuters) – Nigeria is holding back $450 million in revenue earned by international airlines operating in the country, a senior executive at the world’s largest airline association said on Sunday.
Africa’s largest economy has restricted access to foreign currency for imports and for investors looking to repatriate profits as the country copes with a severe dollar shortage.
International Air Transport Association vice president for Africa and the Middle East Kamal Al Awadhi described talks with Nigerian officials to release the funds as a “frantic ride”.
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“We keep hacking and we hope it clicks, that this will hurt the country later,” he told reporters in Doha on the eve of the IATA annual airline chiefs meeting there this week.
Al Awadhi, a former chief executive of Kuwait Airways, said Nigerian officials blamed the shortage of foreign exchange for the airline’s failure to repatriate revenue.
The spokesman for Nigeria’s central bank did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Nigeria previously blocked foreign airline revenue before later repatriating the funds.
IATA has so far held two rounds of talks with Nigerian officials, including from the central bank, who Al Awadhi said were “unresponsive” to releasing cash.
Another round of talks between IATA and Nigerian officials is due to begin soon, the airline lobby group said, without giving a date.
“Hopefully we can find some sort of solution where it starts to go down (but) it won’t, I doubt, be paid in one fell swoop,” Al Awadhi said.
IATA says $1 billion in foreign airline revenue is being withheld across Africa, though Nigeria is the only country where the value of blocked funds has risen.
The $450 million, the largest amount retained by an African nation, was up 12.5% in May from the previous month.
Algeria, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, which collectively withhold $271 million from foreign airlines, repaid small amounts of debt in May. Eritrea was unchanged at $75 million, IATA said.
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Reporting by Alexander Cornwell; additional reporting by Camillus Eboh in Abuja; Edited by Barbara Lewis
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