Minister for Transport, Kwaku Ofori-Asiamah, has said revenues accruable to government from the aviation sector for last year was cut to 20 percent due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the industry.
The enormous decline in revenue was on the back of the closure of Ghana’s airports among a list of directives issued by President Akufo-Addo in an attempt to mitigate the spread of the novel virus in the country.
All 23 airlines operating at the country’s various airports – particularly at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) – halted operations following the directive affecting revenues from the sector.
Revenues earned from the aviation sector comes in the form of aeroplane landing fees, fees for using Ghana’s airspace, passenger safety charge, airport taxes among others.
Speaking on Eye on Port and monitored by norvanreports, Mr Kwaku Asiamah, failing to note revenues accrued so far to government from the sector since the reopening of the airports in September 1, 2021, as well as the total monies lost by the sector, stated government had to at a point intervene and pay salaries of workers of the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) due to the plunge in revenues.
“The aviation industry was the worst hit, revenues dropped to 20 percent and government had to step in to find monies and pay workers because government wasn’t prepared to let anyone go home,” he stated giving an overview of how the transport sector fared in 2020 under Covid-19 on the show.
Adding same was done for the two State-owned transportation companies – Intercity State Transport Company (STC) and Metro Mass Transit (MMT).
In the case of the STC and MMT, a cumulative amount of Ghs 42,891,021 was spent by government in 2020 and in January this year to cater for cost of operations particularly salaries of workers as the two firms faced serious financial constraints caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Metro Mass Transit was supported with an amount of Ghs 36,552,789 whilst STC was supported with an amount of Ghs 6,338,232.77.
Speaking further, the Transport Minister noted that the Covid-19 pandemic had taught government a valuable lesson in that it cannot continue to do things in a certain manner and that going forward, it would look at changing how things are done in the sector with particular focus on leveraging on technology with regards to operations within the various sub-sectors.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) in its outlook for the global air transport industry has said airlines are expected to lose $84.3 billion in 2020 for a net profit margin of -20.1 percent.
According to the aviation body, revenues are expected to fall by 50 percent to $419 billion from $838 billion in 2019. However, in 2021, losses are expected to be cut to $15.8 billion as revenues rise to $598 billion.
