Tanzania Airports authority seeks full powers

Dar es Salaam. The Tanzania Airports Authority (TAA) is seeking to have full powers over its resources and supervision of airports construction in a new bid to boost aviation services.
The authority lost powers to supervise construction of airports to the Tanzania National Roads Agency (Tanroads) in February 2017, over what the government termed its failure to deliver.
During the launch of the new state-of-the-art Terminal-3 building at the Julius Nyerere International Airport in August 2019, President John Magufuli showered praise on Tanroads for accomplishing the task that TAA had failed to do.
Now TAA blames its failure to effectively supervise airport projects on financial constraints facing most of the 58 airports it operates in the country.
“We want to have full autonomy. As I speak, we have already prepared a proposal for presentation to the council of permanent secretaries,” the TAA director general Julius Ndyamukama told The Citizen on the telephone. Upon its endorsement, permanent secretaries would forward the proposal to the Cabinet for deliberation.
“We are the end-users of airports. We think we will be more active in supervision of airports,” said Mr Ndyamukama.
He said TAA was risking losing its technical capability if the task of airport construction will continue to be delegated to Tanroads,
“I don’t say Tanroads is not doing well, but what I mean is that we can do better. This is because we know the industry better and we are the ones who undertake technical planning,” said the TAA boss.
With full autonomy, TAA stands a chance of accessing more opportunities including having control over passenger service charges, all of which are currently going to the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA).
Passenger service charge stands at Sh10,000 and $40 for domestic and international flights respectively.
“We need money for financing operations in our airports. We would appreciate if we get at least half of the collected revenue in passenger service charges,” he said.
Out of 58 airports managed and owned by TAA only five - JNIA, Mwanza, Arusha, Mafia and Lake Manyara - generate enough revenues to finance their recurrent expenses, according to the 2019 TAA annual performance review for the airports operation and maintenance.
The rest depend on subsidies from the government.
According to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (Icao), overall financial situation and operating efficiencies of airports that are operated by autonomous authorities tended to improve.
Icao advises countries to consider the need to establish authorities to manage airports, air navigation services, or both, for improved efficiency and financial stability.
“Autonomous airport authorities have functioned well where they have been vested with financial independence. They vary considerably in the degree of freedom they are given to make decisions pertaining to their activities,” reads part of Icao’s statement.
However, according to Icao, where such independence is lacking, many such authorities continue to seek governmental funding.
This places an additional demand on the government resources either leading to scarcity in one sector or delay in the development or maintenance activities due to lack of sufficient funds.
It is in this context that the private sector’s participation in airport ownership, operation and management has come into focus.
There is a growing trend of privatisation of major autonomous airport authorities as well as government operated airports as a whole or in part.
Privatisation may offer significant benefits in certain cases.
It could relieve States of the burden of heavy capital investment and could give airport management direct access to the open market for loans or capital for investments in new airports, expansion or rehabilitation projects.