Ghana hosts 23rd plenary session of AFCAC

President John Dramani Mahama has called for a frank and realistic assessment of the state of aviation in Africa and come up with equally realistic and practical solutions to the major challenges facing the aviation industry.

He said Africa had to preserve life by tightening the screws on operations and practices that constituted safety hazards, adding that the most serious problem in Africa was about safety and security.

The President made the call in a speech read on his behalf by the Minister of Transport, Mrs Dzifa Ativor, at the opening of the 23rd Plenary Session of the African Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC) in Accra Wednesday.

He said if a high quality African air transport service was preserved, it would be essential to define the role of the African Union (AU) in the implementation of the Yamoussoukro Accord.

President Mahama indicated that despite the considerable progress made in aviation in the region, it was sad to say that it was easier to travel to Europe with a foreign airline than with an African airline.

He said the absence of east-west connection in Africa and the seemingly high cost of fares were worrying factors that urgently needed to be addressed.

“In terms of international traffic for the West and Central Africa region, the dominant connection is towards Europe, with nearly 4.6 million passengers per year and a 12 per cent average yearly growth,” he said.

President Mahama said the Government of Ghana had made available to the aviation agencies all revenues generated through passenger service charges for the development and maintenance of airport infrastructure in Ghana.

That policy decision, he explained, was to support the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) to become the aviation hub within the West African sub-region.

He said the choice of Ghana to host the plenary could not have been more opportune, considering the significant socio-economic development strides that Ghana had made in the past few years, culminating

in its attainment of lower middle-income status.

He said Ghana was fully aware of the importance of aviation to the socio-economic development of member states and, therefore, had maintained an office with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in Montreal, Canada, to ensure that new developments and thinkings in the aviation industry were quickly forwarded to Ghana for speedy implementation.

For his part, the President of the ICAO, Mr Roberto Kobeh Gonzalez, said Africa would realise the full potential of its civil aviation when governments and the industry co-operated towards ensuring the sustainability of the air transport system.

“By sustainability we mean, safe, secure and environmentally friendly operations that provide airlines, airports, air navigation service providers and other stakeholders with a reasonable expectation of profitability,” he said.

Mr Gonzalez said the forecast of the organisation for the next 20 years was for passenger traffic to increase at an annual rate of 5.3 per cent and freight traffic at 5.6 per cent, with enormous economic, social and cultural benefits.

The President of AFCAC, Mr Mohammed Saleh Douga, said the commission, as of now, comprised 54 African states and had been an AU agency on civil aviation since its inception.

He said Africa contributed approximately three per cent of global air traffic, which was woefully inadequate, considering its size and population.

Story by Mary Mensah