01 Aug 2017

The Civil Aviation Authority of Botswana (CAAB) is expected to implement aeronautical charges in November this year as per agreement with the stakeholders.

The agreement was reached after the second stakeholder consultative meeting where the stakeholders adopted the proposed new charges and gave the authority a go ahead with the implementation.

CAAB chief executive officer, Mr Pusoetsile Moshabesha said in an interview after a closed discussion that they had a fruitful meeting with stakeholders as they agreed on the proposed charges.

He said although they requested more time for better planning from now before the implementation could commence of which “we agreed to start implementation by November and now we are going to inform the minister of transport and communication about the outcome of the meeting as per the Civil Aviation Act and map the way forward.”

Mr Moshabesha explained that the new charges were not meant for the authority to make profit but they were geared to reduce the burden from government adding they depended much on government subvention.

He also noted that they came up with the proposed charges after benchmarking in the SADC region where they realized that Botswana was in average and still low in terms of pricing.

Furthermore, he stated that CAAB has been realising an increase in operating costs versus the revenue adding that in order for authority to achieve an optimum balance, attention needs to be paid to the quality and level of service, passenger volumes and level of charges.

Mr Moshabesha said these were addressed in the Strategy and Business Plan objectives on customer satisfaction, financial and institutional imperatives to address the expansion of the revenue base and improving its collection, respectively.

The chief executive officer also revealed that the aviation industry also agreed on the 15 per cent increase on annual basis.

He also said the industry was happy that the authority had improved services as regulator hence they realised the importance of the new charges.

Earlier on the director of CAAB Air Navigation Services, Mr Silas Silas explained that the proposed review and recommended adjustments were guided by following; minimising the need for an operational subsidy required for CAAB, while concurrently supporting the economic developmental of the authority.

Finding the optimum balance between the need to charge rates that are comparable to the region and the need to ensure financial sustainability of the authority and maintaining a reasonable progression of fare with aircraft size just to mention a few.

Giving the current situation, Mr Silas noted that the greater portion of CAAB aeronautical revenues come from en-route charges and passenger service charges, accounting for a combined total of over 90 per cent of the revenue.

For his part, CAAB board chairman, Mr John Sampson said  the last charges were reviewed almost 4.5 years ago adding that during the time, operational costs had increased and infrastructure had been improved.

He said it was their wish to continue to improve facilities in order to support aviation business and grow the industry. “We can do that successfully with an improved revenue base” he added.

Mr Sampson also pointed out that it was critical for stakeholders to remind themselves that Section 11 of the Civil Aviation Act placed upon the authority the requirement that in performing its functions, it must ensure that it did so within sound commercial and financial principles and that the revenue generated by the authority were sufficient to meet the expenditure.

“We acknowledge the balancing we have to do in facilitating the growth of trade and industry including tourism in the country but again we also have to aim for a sustainable growth,” he added. ENDS