Barbados seeks assistance to develop aviation sector

The government of Barbados is seeking Ghana’s expertise to help develop its aviation sector into a formidable industry in the Caribbean Region.

Barbados specifically wants support to prepare it ahead of an International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) safety audit due in October this year.

Ghana successfully passed a similar assessment last year and obtained Africa’s highest score, receiving an effective implementation rate of 89.89 per cent in Aviation Safety Oversight.

This came to light when a delegation from Barbados, led by its Minister of Tourism and International Transport, Mr Kerrie Symmond, paid a courtesy call on the Minister of Aviation, Mr Joseph Kofi Adda, in Accra last Friday.

Collaborations

Mr Symmond underscored the need for Ghana Barbados to build a strong framework of collaboration in the aviation sector.

The aviation sector in Barbados, he said, was currently undergoing transformation, for which reason Barbados needed to learn from a country with a better aviation record, such as Ghana.

While Ghana had successfully separated its civil aviation authority from the airport company, Mr Symmond said, Barbados still operated civil aviation as a department under its airport company.

“This situation is negatively impacting the growth of our aviation sector in terms of security and safety. And so we are planning to transform our civil aviation department into an authority. This development is a new field for us and so we have decided to learn from a country that has gone through a similar process and has become the best at it,” the Barbadian minister said.

Beyond decoupling civil aviation from the airport company, Mr Symmond said, Ghana could also help Barbados in the areas of aviation legislation, state operating regulations, state civil aviation systems, safety functions and technical personnel qualification and training.

“Although we have arguable the biggest and best of the aerodromes in the Caribbean, we don’t have a regulatory framework that allows us to get high marks in terms of the safety prerogative set by the ICAO.

“I understand that Ghana is a high-level player in security and safety oversight in the aviation sector and I think there are a lot we can learn in terms of technical assistance and cooperation in this regard,” he added.

Priority

A Parliamentary Secretary of Barbados, Mrs Donna Cadogan, said civil aviation had become a national priority for her country and that the current Bajan government was committed to strengthening the sector in the region.

“We also have an ICAO audit coming up in October this year and, therefore, we have some few months to get ourselves in order. We need a lot of tightening up in terms of legislation and that is also an area we think Ghana can help us,” she said.

Readiness

Mr Adda expressed the readiness of Ghana to help Barbados to build a strong aviation sector in the Caribbean.

He said Ghana was in the process of decoupling regulations from air navigation by establishing two entities to handle air navigation and regulation issues separately.

The minister directed the Technical Director of the ministry, Mr Willie Orhin, who was part of the team that worked on decoupling the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) from the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL), to brief the delegation on how that agenda was executed.

He said Ghana’s dream of becoming an aviation hub in the West African sub-region demonstrated a good example of how fruitful policies and programmes had been implemented over the years.

According to Mr Orhin,”after separating them, both the GCAA and the GACL have done well in supporting the government to improve the country’s aviation sector”.