Accra, February 26, 2018//-Ghana is making great efforts to attract new airlines into its domestic airline industry following the recent collapsed of Starbow airline leaving only Africa World Airline to operate .
To this end, the country’s Ministry of Aviation began talks with the Finance Ministry to scrap taxes on import duty on aircraft parts and other ancillary aircraft equipment.
“About the removal of import duties on aircraft spare parts, we are in talks with the Finance Ministry. “We are to submit a memo to [the minister] for it to be favourably considered. So that is good news,” the Minister of Aviation, Cecilia Dapaah, said at a breakfast meeting to discuss developments in the aviation industry.
She believes that when these taxes are scrapped they would go along to complement government’s efforts to reduce the components of the price build-up of VAT on domestic airline tickets.”It is also expected to increase the patronage of domestic air travel in the country”, according to her.
The move was part of efforts to make air travel within the country affordable and safe for all people living in the West African country.
Commenting on the government’s drive to attract new entrants into the domestic aviation market, the Country Coordinator for CUTS International Ghana, Appiah Kusi Adomako has rather urged the Ghanaian government to put in the necessary conditions needed to attract investors into the industry.
He said new entrants into the domestic space would not survive if the issue of high operating cost is not addressed in the country.
According to him, the collapse of four domestic airlines in the country was as a result of unfavorable macro economic conditions in the country.
“The macroeconomic environment forced most of the players out of the market and so if we want to bring in more players into the market, we must make sure that things are stable; because in running an airline business, almost everything related to aircraft is imported into the country and even sometimes we even have to rely on expatriate pilots and we have to pay them huge sums of money”, he told Citi FM, an Accra-based radio station.
Mr Adomako continued: “So if the cedi is not strong I think that it will increase your operational cost and in business, operational cost is always passed onto consumers.”
Mr Adomako stressed that government’s plan to expand the domestic aviation sector will fail if the environment is not suitable for them.
“So we need make sure that the operating environment is good for every business in the environment such that it is able to operate more and consumers can also enjoy the benefits of it”
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, African Eye Report
Emails: mk68008@gmail.com and info@africaneyereport.com
