Airport Company to absorb Aviation Staff

More than 650 workers of the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) will be absorbed by the newly-created Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) that is taking over the airport management functions of the GCAA from January 1, next year.

About 300 workers of the GCAA will be retained to continue performing functions of aviation navigation and regulation which the GCAA is now restricted to do following a decoupling exercise.

Robert Tagoe, Human Resource Director of GCAA, told the Times, after a news briefing on the decoupling exercise by the management, that the staff for GACL will perform the same functions as in GCAA, but under a new management.

He gave the assurance that the decoupling would not create any redundancy, adding the all the staff the GACL have been identified depending on their competencies, and have been briefed on the exercise.

A joint transitional team, he said, had been set up to address problems that the staff may encounter in shifting from GCAA to GACL.

Prior to the decoupling exercise which begun last year, the GCAA was undertaking all the function of airport management, air navigation and regulation.

The Civil Aviation Act, Act 678 passed in November 2004 after the repeal of the PNDC Law 151, mandates the GCAA to cede the airport management function to another body so that the Authority could focus more on the airspace management and regulation functions.

Nii Adumansa Baddoo, acting Director-General of GCAA said the separation of functions would ensure efficiency in the management of the airports and regulation of the country's aviation industry.

The exercise, he said was in line with international aviation practice to enable the GCAA to give more attention to the regulation sector.

The GACL, he said would manage the airports on commercial lines as well as take control over the GCAA's subsidiaries including the aviation clinic, forex bureaux and social centre.