Politicians Urged To Stay Clear Of GIA

The Director-General of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Prof Stephen Adei, has emphasised the need for politicians to be kept out of the running of the national airline, reports Abdulai Abdul-Rahman.

“Politicians must be kept out of managing our national airline because if it accrues debt, we pay it,” he pointed out. He said governments all over the world, including that of Ghana, could not run good airlines because keeping an airline under a political ambit was not right.

According to him, the government could not run a successful airline because it would not be run like a profit-making venture. In an interview after the 17th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana (CIMG) in Accra yesterday, he said even when the government owned shares in an organisation, the management and everything concerning the running of that organisation should be independent and autonomous.

“Shareholding shall not be confused with the governance of a corporation,” Prof. Adei stressed. He, however, suggested the floating of shares at the national level for people to buy, instead of the government managing it, as the way forward, citing British Airways and Kenyan Airlines as practical examples.