The dignitaries and participants in a photograph after the opening session
The Minister of Aviation, Joseph Kofi Adda, has said Ghana’s vision towards becoming an aviation hub in the sub-region is on course.
He said already a number of infrastructural developments had been rolled out in the past years including terminal buildings, new AIR Navigation Services (ANS) building, extension of airside and landside infrastructure, as well as installation of modern air navigation equipment and capacity building of aviation sector professionals.
The sector minister further indicated that the government had reviewed and enhanced bilateral air services agreements (BASA). “The process is ongoing and we hope to launch the HUB in the next couple of months,” he said.
He was speaking at the 22nd meeting of Africa-Indian Ocean Planning and Implementation Regional Group (APIRG/22) and the fifth meeting of the AFI Regional Aviation Safety Group (RASG-AFI/5) in Accra.
The five-day conference has over 200 participants from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) member states in the Africa region, including key stakeholders from international civil aviation sector.
Regional Director ICAO West and Central Africa Office and Secretary for RASG-AFI, Mam Sait Jallow, lauded Ghana for obtaining effective implementation rate of 89.89 per cent – the highest in Africa after ICAO’s Co-ordinated Validation Mission (ICVM) in April 2019.
He noted that a decent number of states in the Accra Flight Information Region apart from Ghana had recorded equally impressive outcomes after similar audits were conducted. He, however, called on member states to leverage the many opportunities that the sector offers to achieve excellence in their operations in the safety and security areas.
The Director General, Ghana Civil Aviation Authority, Ing. Simon Allotey, said Ghana had reached this impressive milestone through strategic collaboration and partnership with other industry partners. He added that no single state could optimize its air navigation system by going solo.
He noted that being number one puts a bit of a challenge on the country to maintain its position.
“One area we are focusing on continuously is human capacity development. We have also put in a mechanism to come up with corrective actions plans to address those areas we were not compliant with in order to work more effectively and efficiently,” he added.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri