Ghanair Board in move to rescue airline

At the end of its brief emergency meeting early on Thursday in Accra, the Board of Directors of Ghana Airways (Ghanair) had no option but to call for the suspension of the national airlines from flying to both Europe and the United States, Chronicle has learnt.

As a result, management was tasked to communicate and make necessary arrangement with customers who have already booked to travel with the airline to both Europe and the US. The suspension of the national airline from flying to Europe and the US, Chronicle learnt, is a wise decision by the Board to save the airline from any subsequent legal action that other creditors might have considered to initiate against Ghanair to defray the debts it owes them.

The decision of the Ghanair Board was prompted by the seizure of the airlines offices and one DC-10 plane in Heathrow, London on Wednesday, this week, after a writ filed by A.J. Walters Aviation had been granted by a London court. Walters had filed a writ in London court seeking to attach Ghanair’s property to defray a rotable spare parts agreement that had saddled the airline with $4.7 million debt.

The decision by the Board could not have come at the right time, this is because Chronicle has sighted a number of threatening documents and letters by the airline’s creditors and once Walters has taken the lead, if care is not taken others would also join in by initiating action to attach other items of property of the Ghanair, which, may consequently lead to the folding up of the airline.

The agreement, which is dubbed ‘Power by the Hour’ Contract, was signed on 18 February 2000 but just before then Ghanair went ahead and sold all its rotable DC-9 parts to Walters.

Apart from Mr Joe Browne, who was the deputy head of the Engineering Department, and now second-in-command of the Management Task Force, the former CEO, Emmanuel Quartey Jnr., and a few of their cronies, nobody knew how much actually accrued from the sale of the quantity of the rotable DC-9 parts to Walters.

Meanwhile, Chronicle has learnt that the forensic team engaged by the government to audit the airline has since started its preliminary work, but there are clouds of doubt as to whether forensic team would be able to uncover any of the dubious deals that went on in the airline for all these years.

Chronicle’s fears, and the doubt in the minds of number of workers who spoke to the Chronicle were the fact that the same people who arrogated power to themselves and abused their offices are still at post, holding key positions in the new administrative set up of the company.

“The only way this forensic auditing can succeed is for government to ask all the big men in Quartey’s administration who are still at post to proceed on leave so not use their positions to derail the work of the forensic team,” said John Lartey, a customer of the airline.