Crowded Skies: Do We Have Too Many Ongoing Air Safety Initiatives?
 

By FREDRICK A. OPOT

The state of airspace safety in Kenya has been the subject of discussion in the recent past. While the quest for improvement of air safety standards is an ongoing, worldwide concern, we must nevertheless appreciate that our state had fallen short of the international safety benchmark – the ICAO Safety and Recommended Practices (SARPs) – as highlighted by the Universal Safety Audit of 1999.

The quest by Kenya Airways to spread its wings farther west, combined with the US-driven Safe Skies initiative, has once again brought the industry under the safety/security spotlight at it strives to achieve IASA (International Aviation Safety Assessment) Category 1 as judged by the Federal Aviation Administration of the US. The audit covers the concerned carrier, Kenya Airways, the home-based regulator, the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority, as well as the Kenya Airport Authority.

This may appear like presenting us with multiple targets, and certainly, if not carefully evaluated, we may find ourselves in a "Tower of Babel" syndrome. If truth be told, IASA Category 1, while citing safety and security concerns, is but an arbitrary set of requirements by the Americans, heavily biased towards bilateral trade and commerce, and intended to assess airlines for fitness to operate into the US. 

The ICAO SARPs, on the other hand, are a recognised standard ratified through an international protocol by contracting states to the Chicago Convention, and are intended to promote the safe and orderly development of international civil aviation throughout the world.

Previous and lobbying by the industry culminated in the Civil Aviation (Amendment) Act, 2002 that set up the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority, a parastatal body, in the place of the former Directorate of Civil Aviation, which was a government department in the Ministry of Transport and Communications. It was anticipated that this move would help shore up the fortunes of the industry, which that had suffered serious institutional and technological neglect. Two years down the road, we have not yet completed the transformation, as a number of building blocks have yet to be put in place.

For instance, institutional realignment, a process that should have required objective prior planning, has yet to be completed. The KCAA was set up on October 24, 2002 with a CEO and a board being installed soon thereafter, while the rest of the members of staff were for a substantial period left in limbo. To date although all the staff have been formally employed by the Authority and the management structure is in place, most senior positions remain to be filled. This situation has naturally led to an awkward atmosphere, in which, due to uncertainty among the aspirants, service delivery has suffered further deterioration.

Financial autonomy was one of the fundamental concerns behind the lobbying to form an Authority, as it was considered necessary to remove the excessive red tape associated with the civil service in order to ease procurement of services and enhance infrastructural development for improved service delivery. Two financial years down the road, the KCAA has not been granted autonomy. As a result, all fees and user charges are still collected by the Kenya Revenue Authority and KCAA has to wait for funding, like before, from the exchequer.

This situation must put a lot of strain on the KCAA's various projects; a case in point may include the ongoing saga of the tender to carry out calibration of navigation equipment, which is now outstanding for years. The board, in conjunction with the minister, should come out firmly to ensure the necessary machinery is expedited to facilitate this.

The ability of the new Authority to operate to the expected standards will largely depend on how effectively it approaches corporate capacity building and mission orientation. Thus far, we have seen some limited activity involving the recruitment of additional staff in some of the crucial areas that had previously suffered a debilitating shortage. Although this is a move in the right direction, if the training of the new officers is not properly co-ordinated, we shall end up with ill-equipped bureaucrats. The entire workforce also needs to be reoriented with the new vision in mind; otherwise, we shall have a new and expensive organisation with the same old civil service mentality.

As the new Authority, on behalf of the Kenya government, is pursuing various bilateral and regional initiatives, we would like to advocate caution. Since most of these are likely to impact on the industry in the future, consultation in advance would benefit the intended exercise. Some of these initiatives include:

• Harmonisation of personnel licensing within the East African Community.

• The Comesa Open Skies policy.

• The EC-funded study for the implementation of safety oversight capability within the East African Community.

• World Bank Northern Corridor transport funding for flight safety improvement.

• The US Safe Skies initiative and the related IASA Category 1 attainment. 

Fredrick A. Opot is the former chairman of the Aeronautical Society of Kenya

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