By Songa wa Songa 

The Citizen Correspondent

Entebbe. The East Africa civil aviation Safety and Security Oversight Agency, CASSOA,  is striving to replace its troubled equal contribution funding mechanism with a new ‘equitable’ one based on aviation activities in each member state.

In mid-December last year, the agency’s top management held stakeholders’ sensitization meetings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam on the new proposed funding mechanism to persuade the two leading aviation powers which are opposed to the change— Kenya and Tanzania—to soften their stance and embrace the new mechanism.

CASSOA executive director Mr Mtesigwa Maugo told The Citizen on Sunday recently that since its introduction, the system that requires each member state to make equal contribution to support the agency’s activities has been a bone of contention with countries with a  less vibrant aviation industry like Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi lamenting, calling for a fairer mechanism.

On the other hand, the big two   Kenya and Tanzania    have been reluctant to welcome the new system which comes with a proposed price tag of $0.70 per each embarking passenger. If approved, the pay as you earn mechanism will obviously see the  two pay more.

Kenya leads by far in aviation vibrancy in East Africa followed by Tanzania, then Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. CASSOA which was established by the East African Community summit of heads of state in June 2007, has taken sides for a reason.

Mr Maugo said the former system has proved impractical and has dwarfed the implementation of the planned activities due to dwindling contributions from members, hence a need for a new system.

He said in  the 2010/2011 financial year for example, the budget required each partner state, through its respective Civil Aviation Authority (CAA),  to contribute about $570,000 but the agency was only able to get contributions of $1,100,000 (each civil aviation authority contributing $220,000) and $100,000 which was from the amount mobilised by the EAC Secretariat from the donor community – Partnership Fund. 

“Effort to get the deficit to be funded including by the partner states through the EAC Secretariat budget was unsuccessful,” he said.

Again, in this 2011/2012 financial year, he said the agency could only raise $1,250,000 contributed by Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda CAAs each at $270,000 while Rwanda and Burundi CAAs each contributed $220,000. The total budget for the year stands at $3,640,285.

Mr Maugo said the funding deficit has had an impact in the effective implementation of the agency’s strategic plan, affecting mainly the development of the capacity of the agency in implementing the planned activities.

“In order to implement the planned activities in the first and second year, the agency was required to recruit 14 technical personnel out of which four in the first year and 10 in the second year. But due to the deficit in funding, it was only able to recruit one technical personnel – manager airworthiness— in the first year and the board having considered the financial capacity reduced the number in the second year to five,” he recounted.

He added that lack of technical personnel affects the agency’s ability to carry out some of the planned activities effectively and efficiently; particularly the ability to mount technical missions to partner states to determine their level of implementation and assist in oversight activities as per its mandate. 

Also the capability to develop and formulate harmonised technical regulations and standardised technical guidance material are affected, according to him.

The CEO said the decision to contribute at different rates was reached by the CASSOA board and subsequently endorsed by the council after noting the requirement for increased funding requirement while also knowing the inability for the two CAA of Rwanda and Burundi to raise their contribution due to the low aviation activities in their states. 

“The agency was forced to revise and rationalise its budget to $1,933,089 funded from the above CAAs contributions, funds mobilised by the EAC secretariat about $294,000 and from the agency reserve,” he said.

He said the board of CASSOA having considered several options in sustainably funding CASSOA,  agreed to recommend the funding mechanism which is within the provisions of CASSOA Protocol which is also a mechanism currently used as a source of funds in the partner states for funding the aviation activities in the civil aviation administrations. 

This paper’s investigations established that sceptics argue that charging $0.70 to embarking passengers will make the region an expensive destination compared to major competitors in tourism arrivals.

 Mr Maugo was quick to allay the fears. “The argument is incorrect since in those competitor states, the same funding mechanism at higher rates has been established to fund their civil aviation authorities and in some cases it includes fuel surcharge which has more impact on ticket costs than the $0.70 for an embarking passenger; when giving such argument, one needs also to evaluate the impact of not establishing an effective and sustainable safety oversight system to conducting business in the aviation industry.” 

Mr Maugo also hinted that the consequences have gone further than hampering the agencies’ activities as far as scaring away scarce qualified aviation safety and security personnel in the East African region.

He said despite the fact that all East Africa CAAs are autonomous and self accounting, they are still subject to public services in terms of recruitment and pay structure to their staff, noting that the other challenge is that all the CAAs in their structure do include both regulatory functions and service provision.

He quoted the ICAO standards which requires that the remunerations of technical personnel  carrying out oversight activities be comparable to the personnel they oversee in the industry. 

“This is for obvious reasons, to ensure they are not compromised but also that the CAA can attract and retain the most qualified personnel; none of the CAA is able to sustain payment of their technical staff comparable to similar personnel they oversight in the industry,” he said and added:

“This is one of the challenges and probably the main; which has resulted in our CAAs losing staff to the industry and also outside their respective countries. The agency is conducting a consultancy to determine and develop regional strategies in attracting and retaining technical personnel in the oversight functions.”

The agency’s first CEO warns of the worst aviation safety scenarios the in the  East African region if the current system is to be maintained. His thrust is that there is a very big challenge in the consistent implementation of international standards and consistent regulatory oversight within the partner atates because of inadequate resources, both technical and financial. 

He said the regional organisation approach was therefore expected to resolve this challenge by shared resources, but also provide the economy of scales in oversight functions which can only be achieved by establishing a sustainable funding mechanism capable of providing the required financial resources to support the attraction and retention of technical staff as well support the implementation of oversight activities.

“ It is understood that initially the cost of establishment of the system will be higher but in the long run this cost will go down to benefit the aviation industry in general. If the current practice of equal contribution is maintained, then it is obvious as indicated above some of the CAA, if not all, will not be able to contribute the increased budget requirement of the Agency; the little contributions provided by the partner states through their respective CAAs will not be enough to carry out the mandate of the regional organisation. In this case the agency will not make any positive contribution to the development of a safe and secure aviation industry, in which case the stakeholders will have a right to questions if it was necessary to be established within the EAC strategy.  Consequently, lack of effective implementation of international standards by the partner states will affect the industry access to foreign markets and hurt our effort to develop the tourism sector as a single destination,” he said.