Ганская метеорологическая служба угрожает судом на авиационное ведомство из-за долгов в 59 миллионов седи

The Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet) has threatened legal action against the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) over its failure to pay statutory revenues due to the agency for providing aeronautical meteorological services. The move follows years of negotiations, parliamentary engagements and other efforts by GMet to resolve the matter, with legal action now being considered as the next step. The Director-General of GMet, Dr Eric Asuman, in an interview with the Daily Graphic on Thursday, August 10, said the GCAA owed GMet arrears dating back to 2019. “We have gone beyond conversations and negotiation; GMet has reached the point where further negotiations with the GCAA are no longer productive, so we have already written to the Attorney-General and we are preparing to commence legal action,” Dr Asuman said. GMet act Under the amended Ghana Meteorological Agency Act, 2019 (Act 1002), GMet is entitled to 10 per cent of landing charges and 10 per cent of en-route or overflight charges collected by the GCAA, while the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) is required to remit five per cent of airport passenger taxes to GMet. Dr Asuman said the statutory arrangement followed years of discussions between GMet and aviation authorities and was intended to provide the agency with a sustainable source of funding for its specialised services. He explained that GMet had initially signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the then Ghana Civil Aviation and Airport Company in 2008, under which 10 per cent of landing charges would be paid to the agency. According to him, the arrangement was later strengthened through an amendment to the GMet Act, which Parliament passed in 2019 and the President assented to on September 27, 2019. Dr Asuman said the amended law expanded GMet’s entitlement to cover 10 per cent of landing charges, 10 per cent of en-route or flyover charges and five per cent of airport passenger service charges. He said the GACL began complying with its obligation in 2023 after authorising the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to remit GMet’s share directly to the agency. “Effective October 2023, the IATA started setting aside GMeT components and in November 2023, the first tranche came,” he said. He said the direct payment arrangement had since provided GMet with a more reliable source of income to support its operations. GCAA arrears Dr Asuman said the GCAA, on the other hand, had failed to authorise a similar direct payment arrangement despite several engagements. “We think they owe us about GH¢59 million. They said they owe us about GH¢22 million for this period,” he said. He explained that GMet could not independently establish the final figure because flight and revenue data required for the reconciliation remained with the GCAA. Dr Asuman said the two institutions agreed, during a parliamentary engagement at Aqua Safari on March 28 and 29 this year, to reconcile the arrears accumulated from 2019 to March 2026. He said the GCAA had proposed settling the reconciled arrears in nine equal quarterly instalments and authorising the IATA to transfer GMet’s statutory share directly to the agency going forward. However, he said the agreed reconciliation had not been completed, and the letter authorising the IATA to make the direct transfers had not been sent. He said GMet subsequently wrote to the GCAA and resorted to the Right to Information (RTI) process to obtain the data needed to verify the amount owed. Dr Asuman said the GCAA had responded to the RTI request by indicating that it needed clearance from its sector minister before releasing the information. He said GMet had since been informed that the GCAA had 90 days under its law to process the request. Only GH¢1m payment Dr Asuman said the GCAA had made only one payment of GH¢1 million to GMet between January and August this year. He said the payment came after parliamentary intervention and represented only a small portion of the funds due to the agency. He said the situation was putting pressure on GMet’s finances, even as the agency continued to provide aviation weather information to support flight operations. “Every 30 minutes we give them information. Every one hour, we give them information. Every significant weather we see, we give it to them. We give them Terminal Aerodrome Forecast consistently, because if we don’t, planes will not land,” he said. He said the agency also provided weather information from stations across the country, which it combined with information from airports to support aviation forecasts. Dr Asuman said the services were essential for pilots, air traffic controllers and aircraft operators during take-off, landing and flights through Ghana’s flight information region.