Countries must work towards enforcing agreements – Ghana’s Director

Air Transport Meeting

…more needs to be done to address barriers

The recently concluded Air Transport Meeting which was organised by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has tacked the main barriers that countries face when promoting air travel across the diaspora.
In an interview with <<Guyana Times>> on Friday, Director General of Ghana Civil Aviation Authority, Simon Allotey, said that while the conference was successful in its aim to establish new relations, countries must work towards enforcing agreements that are signed with other nations.
“The conference has lived up to its objectives on promoting air connectivity between the diaspora. The discussions were very practical because, over the years, we took several corporation agreements, MoUs which were never implemented,” said Allotey.
He said the barriers lie within these policies which had never materialised, and member states are now working towards resolving the issues. This is evident in the memorandums of understanding (MoUs) that Guyana signed with Aruba and Ghana respectively.
“This forum, we’ve realised that we need to put our words into actions. We have identified our key barriers to improving connectivity. Collectively, we’ve all resolved towards addressing these barriers and improving air links.

Some of the barriers relate to regulations, policies at state and regional levels,” he stressed.
For now, the participants have decided that free movement across the continents is the next step which can eliminate some of the glitches of the past.
“We’ve all agreed that we should allow free movement of people within Caricom and Africa. We can achieve that by states accepting and implementing the various protocols on free movement of people, and these have been some of the barriers,” he explained.
This publication also sought a comment from the Director of Policy Planning at the Aviation Ministry in Ghana, Ellis Hugh Tamakloe, as he appealed for more action on the part of governing aviation bodies in each country.
Many officials would have shared their perspectives, and the conference would be successful only if the talks are followed by effective action.
“From the discussions, there are a lot of things that we need to do. There are a lot of things that we’ve been doing, but we need to do more to actualise what we need to do to ensure that there is connectivity between the Caribbean and Africa and the Caribbean and elsewhere. We think that [if] the findings and discussions are implemented, then this will be successful for all of us,” stated Tamakloe.
The MoU signed between Aruba and Guyana will see direct flights from Georgetown to Aruba in the near future. The same is expected in the agreement between Guyana and Ghana.