Audit has ranked us highly, say Entebbe airport bosses

Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) has scored 72.17 percent in the recent safety oversight audit, which was conducted by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) early this month.

It is not clear why the officials released the findings before ICAO publishing the final report.

The audit was carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of Uganda’s safety oversight systems in compliance with the ICAO standards and recommended practices.

While releasing the preliminary report in Kampala yesterday, the State Minister for Transport, Mr Fred Byamukama, said the findings indicate that Uganda ranks above the average of 55.66 percent for the eastern and southern Africa region and the global average of 67.68 percent.

“The audit score is a vote of confidence in Uganda’s aviation safety system, which shows the entire international aviation community that the country complies with ICAO standards,” Mr Byamukama said.

The ranking was reached after an assessment of Uganda’s effective implementation of eight critical elements of the state safety oversight system as well as the status of compliance with ICAO standards and practices.

The areas of focus include legislation, organisation, licensing, flight operations, airworthiness, and aircraft accident investigation, air navigation services and aerodrome and ground aids.

However, the preliminary report doesn’t show how each area performed, but according to UCAA , the final report with detailed issues will be released by ICAO after six months.

Mr Byamukama noted that Uganda did not register and has never registered a significant safety concern, saying that when a country registers such concern in an audit, it means that there is a serious breach of safety standards which can lead to several airlines shunning the air space of that particular country.

Mr Byamukama explained that if Uganda had not passed the audit, the country’s score would have been below the global and regional average, which would lead to loss of confidence.

He noted that the fact that the audit focused on the airline, the success means that it will become easier for national carriers to join other international airline alliances and associations, which presents more opportunities, and for other licensed operators to get more business.

“In this such an international audit, the worst scenario is getting a significant safety concern, which leads to a blacklist of the country’s entire aviation system until it is resolved. The impressive score by Uganda is a clear testimony of the hard work and effort towards efforts aimed at enhancing safety in the country’s aviation system,” he said.

Mr Byamukama urged UCAA and key stakeholders to maintain the momentum that was exhibited during the onsite audit with the intent to retain consistency in the oversight responsibilities.

Although the country’s aviation scored high, there are areas of improvement as recommended by the ICAO through the corrective action plan.

The Director General of the UCAA, Mr Fred Bamwesigye, said the authority did not perform well in accident investigations, which scored 19 percent.

“There is no country which has ever scored 100 percent, there are always areas of improvement and they are in legislation regarding accident investigations and they gave us guidelines on how to go about it,” he said.

ICAO conducts such audits every six years and the last audit conducted by ICAO on Uganda’s safety was in 2014 and Uganda scored 62 percent.

Entebbe airport

 According to Uganda Civil Aviation Authority, a total of 1,219,189 international passengers have so far been handled at Entebbe airport between January to August 2023 compared to 1,012,862 international passengers in the same period in 2022, and 1,166,796 in 2019 before covid-19 pandemic.  

  Between January to August 2023, Entebbe airport handled a total of 26,822 metric tonnes of export compared to 27,905 metric tonnes in same period in 2022 and 26,118 metric tonnes in 2021 and 28971 metric tonnes in 2019.

The recovery rate for imports is 77.5 percent.