THE GOVERNMENT MUST LEAVE GHANA INTERNATIONAL AIRLINES TO ITS OWN DEVICES!

It was recently reported that Ghana International Airlines(GIA) is asking the government of Ghana to bail it out - to the tune of some US$52 millions, apparently. If the Mills administration has the national interest at heart, it must simply leave GIA to its own devices – and use the US$50 million plus that GIA is said to be seeking from it, to rather help in the effort now underway to ensure that Ghana’s power problems are resolved quickly.

That GIA is today said to be seeking funding from the Ghanaian nation-state, vindicates those who criticized the previous regime, for allowing foreign investors who did not own a scheduled airline, to step into the vacuum created by the demise of Ghana Airways.

It also brings into sharp focus the negative effect on our country’s development when governments of the day sacrifice the national interest – by allowing the greedy ambitions of a powerful and politically well-connected few to prevail: when deciding the future of state-owned entities.

At the time when there was talk of finding a replacement for Ghana Airways, because it clearly could no longer be sustained by state subsidies, some of us argued (when the ridiculous idea for GIA was being canvassed by those who sought to profit from it), that it was far better to let that ethical businessman Sir Richard Branson’s airline company take over Ghana Airways and merge it with Virgin Nigeria: and call it Virgin ECOWAS.

The attraction for us then, was that Virgin was not only a world-class carrier (run by a man who is famous for being an ethical operator who refuses to pay bribes in his operations worldwide), but was also one of the most innovative and profitable of the world’s leading airlines – which was already familiar with the West African business environment: through its Virgin Nigeria joint-venture with the Nigerian government.

The logic of a Virgin ECOWAS for us was that it could eventually grow to encompass all the loss-making national carriers in the ECOWAS region and contribute revenue to their owner-governments in terms of profits from such a West Africa-wide joint-venture.

Above all, it would have made the skies of a sub-region of an African continent notorious for the atrocious safety-record of its many dangerous domestic carriers, a safe one, for air travellers in the whole of West Africa – thus promoting intra-regional trade and encouraging multi-nation-destination tourism in the area.

One does not know if GIA is still run by the same individual who used to own Experienced Student Travel Services Limited (ESTS), but the government would do well to talk to those who used to employ her as General Manageress of Student Travel Services (STS).

Apparently, her poor supervision there led to the disappearance of substantial sums of money – which ended up with a pastor whom it was said could double money: via the company’s accountant.

That she was employed by GIA during the previous regime to run that company without anyone ever asking for references from her former employers at STS speaks volumes about the nepotism that underpins the company culture of GIA. It is also instructive that when she left STS she sought to reap where she had not sown – by setting up a rival firm to compete with her former employers.

By the simple ruse of adding an E to the acronym STS she sought to carry on business as usual – profiting from the usage of the commercial network and contacts built up over the years by STS at great cost to the company that once employed her. Surely not the most ethical of moves for anyone who believes in the principles of corporate good governance to make, is it, dear reader?

The government of Ghana will definitely be better off without GIA – because as presently constituted it amounts to the financial equivalent of a black-hole: through which taxpayers’ money will continue to disappear regularly. The new Mills administration must simply leave GIA to its own devices – and if that be its fate, let it die a natural death, as it struggles to survive against the odds, in an international airline industry facing massive losses, in a world in the grip of a severe recession. A word to the wise…