EA air passengers to pay more for safety

Air passengers in East Africa will each be levied $0.7 (Sh52) to support the Civil Aviation Safety and Security Oversight Agency (CASSOA) if the proposal is approved by ministers of Finance.

The agency was set up by the East African Community in 2007 to oversee development of effective civil aviation safety and security oversight in the bloc.

Member states, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Burundi and Rwanda have up to March next year to decide on the proposed charge, which is likely to raise air travel costs in the region.

Sources close to EAC secretariat say the fee has been proposed in order to strengthen the body whose activities are expected to include those of civil aviation authorities of member states.

The charge would be levied on every embarking passenger by the respective authorities in each country on behalf of the agency which will soon be relocated to Entebbe, Uganda from Arusha.

The measure is intended to raise the budget of the institution whose current financing strategy that includes contributions by partner states is inadequate.

Consultants from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) discovered recently that an apportioned budget contribution the regional agency gets from CAAs was “unsustainable for the complex structure of CASSOA”.

Under the CASSOA Act 2009, the five member countries of the community are obligated to directly finance its operations.

The ministers of Finance from the five countries, however, concurred that everything should be done to support the two year old institution.

They said that creation of the agency was within the community’s long term process of establishing a single airspace in the region with harmonised regulations and standards whose implementation will largely be charged on CASSOA.

Establishment of the agency was also intended to enable the region oversee implementation of the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s standards in enhancing aviation safety and security.

The relocation of CASSOA to Entebbe brings to four the number of EAC institutions based in Uganda.

Others are the East African Development Bank, Lake Victoria Fisheries Organisation and the Inter University Council of East Africa.

Currently, there are plans to revive the Soroti Flying School in Uganda which used to operate in the 1970s under the former community that collapsed in late 1970s.