The Coalition of Professional Associations and the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority Public Service Workers Union have condemned the Lands Commission for allegedly facilitating the sale of land originally earmarked to stock some technical infrastructure of the GCAA.
The angry workers claim some works on the land are already disrupting the safety of the Aviation Authority’s operations.
Among other things, the workers claim the government has taken over larger portions of these lands leaving behind only portions of the land which may no longer afford the GCAA enough room to operate safely.
According to spokesperson of the coalition of Professional Associations and the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority Public Service Workers Union, William Amoako Baah, the Lands Commission and the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources are to blame for the sale of some of these lands to private developers.
“We would want to blame the Lands commission and the Ministry of Lands in this situation because they are the administers of Government lands. So, to us the 614 acres and the 61 acres are under their control and for that matter, they should be able to protect it for Civil aviation purposes. If for any reason you want to reallocate it, there should be recourse to take into consideration, the effect and the impact it is going to have on our operations. Unfortunately, this was not done,” he said.
The Association told a news conference that works which have commenced on some of the sold out lands, do not only hamper the productivity of the staff, but also threatens the safety of Aviation operations.
They are thus calling for the cessation of these projects until the technical team is duly consulted.
“If they continue like this and they start building closer to our facilities we are going to have issues. Last year for instance when they started building at La Nkwantanang, the severed our fiber optic cables and we started having communication challenges at the control centre so quickly our engineers had to rally themselves with help from Ghana Telecom and they were able to restore these facilities without any harm”.
Some of the lands reserved for the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), include a 61 acre land at La Wireless, 90 acres at La TS which houses the AU village, transmitters, and Accident Investigation Bureau, and staff bungalows, and 614 acres La Nkwantanang land which also houses a bungalow for staff and some technical infrastructure.
Already, the Coalition says it has engaged the National Security which asked management of the GCAA to form a technical committee to look into the matter.
The Coalition says also it has also submitted its concerns to management, the sector Minister and the Presidency; but no action has been taken on them.
