Workers of the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) have withdrawn their protests over the encroachment of aviation lands after agreeing to about 150 acres of land offered them by government.
A meeting involving management and the workers’ union over the matter on Wednesday, July 13, ended with the decision that government will hand over 153 acres of land to the GCAA for the installation of the HF Facility.
Though the parcel of land is yet to be officially handed over to the GCAA, the spokesperson for the workers’ union, William Amoah tells Citi Business News they are impressed with the outcome of their demands.
“It has become obvious that we cannot get all the 640 acres of land yet the 153 acres can satisfy our immediate and long term needs. But for the long term needs, once the government has promised to give us lands elsewhere, I think it is necessary that we have come to this compromise,” he stated.
Workers demand handing over of lands
The workers have embarked on numerous protests demanding the handing over of the 640 acres of land to the GCAA.
Their activities led to the grounding of all domestic flights on Saturday, July 9, which led to domestic airlines losing 200,000 cedis altogether.
Citi Business News understands the parcel of land released is close to Ashaley Botwe in the Adentan Municipal area in the Greater Accra region.
Meanwhile William Amoah tells Citi Business News the workers will be visiting the proposed land site together with management and officials of government to initiate the process for the installation of the HF facility.
“We are going to do that as early as possible, because that is the immediate thing. On Monday we are going to the site with the surveyors and when all those things are done, I think by next week or so we should start installing the facility.”
The GCAA may however get over the risk of a judgement debt as the management of the company has engaged the engineers over its failure to meet the July 11 installation date.
The workers’ protests began last when they warned of some safety concerns to air transport.
According to them, the inability to install the HF facility impeded the communication within Ghana’s airspace which extends well into Luanda in Angola.
The Director General of the GCAA, Simon Allotey, maintained that the development was largely to challenges to title deeds.
He however assured that his outfit would work to resolve the issues while conforming to air safety.
But the latest development will restore calm and bring activities at the airport back to normal.
HF Facility to aid communication
The High Frequency (HF) facility is a communication equipment which has a longer range compared to the VHF, as it controls a very wide portion of the ocean as far as Luanda in Angola.
Ghana currently has one facility but its fast degrading nature has prompted the need to get another one installed to aid communication in air navigation.
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By: Pius Amihere Eduku/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
