Ghana has adopted a master plan for the aviation industry for the next 20 years, officials say.
The plan involves the expansion of the Kotoka International Airport (KIA), upgrading of security equipment and facilities, increase in capacity, upgrading the Tamale airport as an alternative to KIA, among others.
The government through the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) has budgeted $50 million for this 20-year plan.
“In fact, we have adopted a master plan that is a 20-year programme. We’ve budgeted about $50 million for the 20-year period to upgrade all our facilities,” Mr. Gershon Adzadi, ICT Manager at GACL told the ABN Digital Television when he recently attended the 2011 Aviation Outlook Africa Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa.
According to Mr. Adzadi, even though the KIA is small but very functional, there is the need to cope with the operations at the airport since the demand by other airlines to fly into Ghana is growing.
Looking ahead, he told the TV station that “we are also looking at one of our domestic airport located at the Northern part of Ghana which is called the Tamale airport…We want to use it as an alternate international airport to Accra so that in case of congestion at the Accra airport, we will be operating some of the international flights from that airport.
“We are continuously improving the touch-down zone of the airport. We have all the security equipment in place – access is restricted to only authorised personnel and we are increasing our boarding gates,” he said.
When the TV host, Samantha Loring, asked Mr. Adzadi how GACL, a limited liability company but 100% owned by government, intends to raise funding for the plan, he said “With self financing and accounting, so the revenue that we generate from concessionaires, landing and parking charges, royalties are what we manage efficiently to ensure that we provide these facilities.”
He said the discovery of oil is one of the driving forces for the high demand for the services of the KIA to expand and they are working in collaboration with the private sector to provide these facilities.
Talking about security at the airport, he emphasised that the company has kept its eyes open and ensures that security is revised as time goes on.
Mr Adzadi indicated that the demand for aviation is growing in Africa and the continent is being considered as a “sleeping giant” in the industry.
“If you look at the entire continent, we have the numbers and demand could be very high – the only thing we need is to push the facilities, upgrade the facilities and to ensure safety and security of the industry and then we’ll see growth in the aviation industry in Africa.”
The 2011 version of the Aviation Outlook Africa focused on innovation, strategy, revenue generation and partnerships for Africa’s airlines and airports.
By Ekow Quandzie