$193 Million Needed for National Airline

The Aviation Ministry has revealed that a whopping $193 million would be needed for the start-up of a national carrier.

This amount, according to the Deputy minister of the sector, Mr. Kwabena Darko-Mensah, will not be sourced from government’s coffers but from the pockets of private investors.

“As a facilitator, we are not looking at using government’s money and even if we would do so, we are looking at it as a start-up that will be withdrawn back.

“Our whole idea is to get the private sector interested and involved in this process. A lot of private investors have shown interest,” he said on TV3’s morning show, yesterday.

Parliament had somewhere in 2017, given approval for the establishment of a national carrier intended to boost Ghana’s Aviation Industry.

Though the country has already seen two defeated phases of a state-owned airline― Ghana Airways and Ghana International Airlines, it is confident that the new airline will come to stay.

“We’ve gone far, we have registered the company and we have gotten a name, we have met stakeholders…we gave ourselves two years staring from May and we would work around that framework,” Mr. Darko-Mensah said.

For history not to repeat itself, the minister said the carrier would be solely managed by private sector after its setup by government.

He said; “The Ghana Airways problem was not an aircraft problem, it was a management problem, the indiscipline issues and these are the issues we want to get out of.”

Roadmap

Mr. Darko-Mensah said the government had a big agenda for the aviation sector since its importance to national development cannot be overemphasised

For this to happen, the minister said government is considering setting up an air cargo village in Tamale to improve agricultural export to other countries.

“We are also planning to do a new international airport in Takoradi because it serves the oil and gas industry and it is the number one contributor of national GDP,” he revealed.

All these, the minister said will be achieved by the NPP government by 2020.

“You can take this as a promise from me, we will do, we are in a hurry to do it,” he assured.

By: Grace Ablewor Sogbey/ [email protected]