Ghana International Airlines Shuts Offices

Ghana International Airlines (GIA) is just waiting for its landlord to close its offices in Accra since management of the company has been saddled with a huge rent.

The telephone lines of the company have been severed recently and the internet service could also be cut anytime soon. Aggrieved workers of the airline who spoke to CITI & BUSINESS GUIDE said the company was just hanging onto the last straw.

Government has decided not to fund its operations rendering management of the airline unable to pay salaries owed to its staff for about three months.

A more worrying aspect of this treatment meted out to the airline is that investors who expressed interest in helping the airline have been stopped from investing in its operations. Government’s release of funding to GIA in tranches has grossly affected its operations.

“GIA initially needed an original business start-up of $55 million, but Government provided $4.9 million while minority shareholders provided $2.1 million. Summarily, money invested into the business stood at $7 million, leaving a wide difference of $48 million.”

Management of the airline recently told the media there had been a significant cash flow challenge ever since the airline was started in 2005 and as a result of the manner in which the support to the airline was released; it has found it very difficult to execute the company’s business plan.

According to Sylvia Lawson, a management member of the airline, the previous government invested an amount of $46.7 million between January 2006 and December 2008, noting that $16 million was obtained from the Social Security & National Insurance Trust (SSNIT).

In the case of the incumbent administration, she said it provided $16.6 million between January 2009 and April 2010, stressing that government had provided a total amount of $63.3 million to GIA.

She also revealed that GIA had a greater part of its market in the Ghanaian community in the UK and therefore such a development did not bode well for the airline and the Ghanaian economy. Aircraft owners and fuel providers have often seized the properties of the airline as a result of huge debts.