GCAA does not compromise on safety — Director-General
The Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) has assured the public that the encroachment on its lands in parts of the country will not have any effect on its operations.
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The Director-General of the GCAA, Mr Simon Allotey, who gave the assurance, stressed that “as an authority, we will not compromise on safety for any reason and will ensure that the aviation industry is always safe for air passengers.”
He was interacting with members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Roads and Transport who paid on a working visit to the authority in Accra last Thursday.
Meanwhile, the GCAA has called on the government and the committee to effectively collaborate with it to facilitate the reclaim of all lands the authority had lost to private developers and other investors.
Workers’ allegations
Earlier in the week, some workers groups in the aviation industry warned that the country risked aviation safety if the government failed to protect some parcels of lands acquired to install aviation safety equipment from encroachers and private developers.
A statement containing the warning was jointly issued by six staff associations within the aviation industry.
It also drew attention to the likelihood of the industry’s inability to provide air traffic services in the Accra Flight Information Region (FIR - Accra Airspace), as a result of the unavailability of land for the installation of vital safety equipment for communications, surveillance and other navigational aid.
The statement claimed that high frequency (HF) equipment, valued at more than €600,000, acquired by the GCAA to enhance communication, had been lying in the stores of the authority for months.
Reaction
Mr Allotey, however, dismissed the claims and allayed the fears of the public, stating that the authority had already installed a lot of vital safety aviation equipment and explained that they were changed whenever the need arose.
He admitted, however, that the La Nkwantanang land between Madina and Adentan and the La Wireless lands, which was acquired to be used as receiving and transmitting stations, were in dispute and added that the GCAA had not lost focus for their intended purposes, nonetheless.
Mr Allotey expressed appreciation for the committee’s visit and promised that the GCAA would give attention to all views and concerns that are raised about aviation safety.
Visit
The committee was led by the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Ablekuma Central Constituency and Chairman of the committee, Mr Theophilus Tetteh Chaie.
The visit was to strengthen the collaboration between the GCAA and the committee and to enable the MPs have firsthand knowledge of the operations and activities of the GCAA.
The visitors thus toured some facilities of the GCAA, including the air traffic control tower and centre of the Kotoka International Airport (KIA), voice communication centres and the radar.
Briefing the media before the tour, Mr Chaie promised that the committee would liaise with the Lands Commission to register all lands belonging to the GCAA in order to reclaim lost lands of the authority, indicating that these involved lands that were not being contested in court.