GIA Agents Head For Court

A group of travel and tour operators in the UK, mainly in London, is preparing to take legal action against the Government of Ghana and the Ministry of Transport for failing to refund monies to passengers who were unable to fly on the Ghana International Airline (GIA) due to its sudden shutdown in June last year.

GIA was closed down due chiefly to severe financial and operational constraints during the summer of last year. At the time, tickets had been sold to nearly a thousand passengers, both Ghanaians and non-Ghanaians.

The government instituted measures to refund all monies to the disappointed passengers but to date many of them have not received any money while some have only received part payments.

The situation has engendered a lot of problems for passengers and Travel Agents who sold the tickets to them.

A spokesman for the Association, Alhaji Ibrahim Atta-Apau said the decision to take legal action was due to government’s refusal to reason with the members, a situation he described as “a necessary evil.”

He noted all efforts, including negotiations and dialogue, had failed and “the signs are that the mistake of the government will affect our business.”

He said the agents have exhausted all measures but some individuals, acting on behalf of government, have made their action inevitable.

Alhaji Atta-Apau noted that one Owusu Ansah, a member of the Interim Committee promised to address the issues, adding that government made provisions in a supplementary budget to refund the monies to the affected passengers.

A Deputy Minister for Transport in March had assured travel agents that government would finalise all issues.

Alhaji Atta-Apau questioned the integrity of those that government appointed to handle the issues saying “we are absolutely disappointed.”

“We are facing this problem because we helped to promote our national airline. Is this the reward for Ghanaians (passengers) who patronised their national airline? I am deeply sorry for Ghana,” he stated.

He said “the courts of law will decide and that will be final. If the court says our monies should go waste for what we have done so be it.”

The Chairman of the Ghana Travel Agents Association in London, George Newman has spent the last two month in Ghana to retrieve these monies.

He told this paper in a telephone interview that “without the monies for the passengers, I cannot return to London, for I do not know what will happen to me.”

He said his outfit, which was set up some decades ago, was collapsing because a lot of customers have lost confidence.

Though members did not disclose where the legal action would take place, sources revealed that two renowned Ghanaian and British lawyers are earnestly working on the case.

The source disclosed that they will battle for the monies and compensations, among others