Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:19:34 +0200
Somalia airspace and waters’ control must be reclaimed: UN may owe millions
in unaccounted for air navigation charges
– By Abdisalam Warsame Hassan and Awet T. Weldemichael
June 17, 2012
For nearly two decades, a small United Nations body has managed Somalia’s
airspace without Somali involvement and international oversight. Sources
close to that office reveal that an internal report documented its 19 years
of mismanagement, financial opacity and failure in mandate fulfilment that
has bewildered the United Nations civil aviation authority.
In 1993 the United Nations Developments Program (UNDP) and the International
Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) jointly established a Technical
Assistance Project to provide basic services to air transport operations
through and within the airspace of Somalia. Upon its evacuation from Somalia
in 1995, a temporary operational station was established in Nairobi. In May
1996, ICAO launched a Civil Aviation Caretaker Authority for Somalia (CACAS)
to manage the country’s airspace and provide basic aviation services. Seven
years later in December 2003, another body replaced CACAS but with little
substantive difference in its mandate or its shortcomings.
Beyond providing air traffic services to flights within and through the
airspace of Somalia, these successive United Nations bodies failed in the
fulfilment of the rest of their mandate: i) provision of technical and
operational assistance at designated airports and to local administrations
in Somalia; ii) establishment and operation of a nucleus civil aviation
administration for the functioning of CACAS; iii) formulation and
implementation of training program for national personnel; and iv)
formulation of procedures and draft regulations required for the operation
and maintenance of civil aviation activities.
According to sources in Kenya and Somalia, the said report by an ICAO
technical assessment team also highlighted an absence of financial
accountability in the management of Somalia’s airspace. All the successive
bodies were mandated to collect air navigation fees from all flights that
enter Somalia’s airspace and use those funds to cover the operational costs
of fulfilling their tasks. While ICAO is responsible for maintaining the
trust fund account set up in 1994 for the deposit of revenues collected from
these air navigation charges, UNDP has the authority to disburse those
funds.
Between 80 and 100 regular flights enter Somalia’s airspace daily. Each of
these flights is liable to paying an estimated navigation fee of $275 per
entry. Everything remaining constant between 1993 and 2011, a conservative
estimate of total revenue (collected or not) thus exceeds $150 million. The
self-supporting project currently generates an average of $9 to $10 Million
a year. There has not been a full, transparent accounting of how that money
has been and is being managed nor where it may be.
A proven method of preparing nationals of war torn countries for technical
or other professional positions has been for international projects (be it
peacekeeping or otherwise) to hire them in such a capacity that knowledge
and skills are transferred. In Somalia, however, the successive United
Nations aviation authorities have systematically avoided hiring qualified
Somali professionals much less to train a core group that can take over in
due course.
Operated by Nairobi-based international staff (including Kenyans), CACAS
hires Somalis as second-class associates. Mostly living in Kenya on student
visas, the Somali personnel are hired at lower levels with limited
compensation packages, their qualifications and performance notwithstanding.
To make matters even worse, relevant UN bodies have been reluctant to
transfer CACAS’s authority over to Somalia’s internationally recognized
Transitional Federal Governments (TFGs). Mogadishu’s repeated requests went
unanswered until 2010. The Prime Minister at the time Omar Abdirashid Ali
Sharmarke submitted TFG’s complaints to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon,
who requested the ICAO General Secretary to look into the matter. That
process culminated in the formation of a Somali Steering Committee composed
of Somali (TFG, Somaliland and Puntland), ICAO and UNDP representatives.
This Steering Committee replaced the idle Management Advisory Board in order
to guide the transfer of CACAS to Somali sovereignty. Its other mandates
include setting objectives and priorities for levels of service, for
infrastructural development, for Somali manpower development and target
dates for replacement of non-Somali staff with Somali nationals. It is also
expected to review the annual work plan for the project and the annual
budget, to ensure that project makes good use of assets, to assist with
resolving strategic level issues and risks, to approve or reject changes to
the project with a high impact on timelines and budget, to endorse project
progress reports to be shared with senior management and higher authorities,
and to review and approve final project deliverables.
In spite of such a robust mandate, the Steering Committee remains neglected
by all UN agencies for Somalia including ICAO and UNDP. A direct consequence
of this neglect is its abject failure in meeting its stated objectives.
Among many flaws, ICAO’s technical assessment team of five professionals
reportedly identified CACAS’s failure in developing what in due course was
expected to become Somali Civil Aviation Administration. It neither
cultivated competent personnel nor put in place procedures for its
regulatory roles. As a result, the assessment team reportedly determined
CACAS’s inability to provide the necessary assurance that its operations are
at an acceptable level of safety. Without safety oversight by other bodies,
CACAS operated without quality management system.
Since he took office, Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali has taken the
transfer of sovereignty over Somalia’s airspace (and waters) as his top
priority. He has succeeded in cultivating consensus among Somali
stakeholders (including Somaliland and Puntland) and has been engaging
relevant United Nations officials in high-level discussions on the matter.
There is no evidence to suggest direct involvement of ICAO’s higher
officials in CACAS’s failures. Rumors abound that outraged officials in
Montreal are in fact quietly scrambling to amend the situation. But their
sincerity will be measured by the speed with which pressing technical
deficiencies and professional incompetence are rectified, and jurisdiction
over the Somali airspace handed back to legitimate Somali authorities who
should retain sovereign prerogatives.
Abdisalam Warsame Hassan (wardheer64_at_hotmail.com) is a former senior Somali
diplomat, having served as Somalia’s chargé d’affaires in Germany, and
designate Ambassador to Poland and then to the African Union.
Dr. Awet T. Weldemichael (awate_is_at_yahoo.com) is an academic at the
University of Paris and University of Kentucky. Both are experts of Horn of
African political and security dynamics, currently working on contemporary
Somalia.
<http://africanarguments.org/2012/06/14/somalia-must-reclaim-control-over-ai
rspace-and-waters-as-un-may-owe-somalia-millions-in-unaccounted-for-air-navi
gation-charges-by-abdisalam-warsame-hassan-and-awet-t-weldemichael/somali_pm
/>
Since he took office, Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali has taken the
transfer of sovereignty over Somalia’s airspace (and waters) as his top
priority.
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