23 Feb 2017

Stakeholders have advised Civil Aviation Authority of Botswana to give priority to the improvement and maintenance of facilities in order to enhence service delivery.

They said most facilities were in a bad state citing Maun airport which was said to be experiencing a lot of traffic but was old and small. The comments were raised during the just ended two day stakeholder engagement meeting.

Some of the resolutions the meeting came up with were that facilities be brought to the standard that they would enable timely service delivery.

As partners and customers in the aviation industry, stakeholders expected quality service delivery as that would open more markets.

They said they needed more facilities at the airports such as ablution blocks, security gates, an office that issued permits and licences on time to avoid delays.

Stakeholders also requested the organisation to explore other opportunities such as expansion of domestic airports like Ghanzi as air transport was a key facilitator to the economy in particular tourism and trade sectors.

Other areas identified for improvement included facilitation of safety and security, communication, customer feedback, enhancement of business opportunities, competition and competiveness, review of regulations and policies, and promotion of career in the aviation to enhance the industry.

Regarding competition, they revealed that encouraging more players in the aviation sector would help it to grow adding that the over protection of one operator in the country was not good in that regard.

However, they appreciated that the organisation was excelling in some areas such as oversight and surveillance especially in Maun where there was ‘tremendous’ improvement.

CAAB was also urged to start the utilisation of technology and also promote careers in aviation other than piloting.

For his part, the head of strategy from CAAB, Mr Lobone Sedingwe explained that most of the proposed areas of focus were covered in the organisation’s revised corporate strategy of 2015-2020.

The strategy he said, intended to transform CAAB into an effective and innovative regulator that contributed to the development of a sustainable and environmentally friendly aviation industry, by investing in human capital and increasing revenue.

Mr Sedingwe said most of the concerns raised were not new adding action was being taken to address them adding that a plan was in place to improve the state of Maun airport.

He also revealed that CAAB was also working at getting its website running. BOPA