PROGRESS REPORT MAY – JULY 2005

A         Summary – Brief

The company continued to organize and coordinate the second Project Implementation Team (PIT) meeting which was scheduled to be held in Tripoli by 22^nd July 2005.

Namibia made requests to the company for specific inputs by participating States and this necessitated discussions with and decisions from Namibia prior to completing coordination trips on the MOU’s.

Libya which had offered to host the second Project Implementation Team meeting was subsequently informed  of developments with Namibia and they requested delay.  Libya was to give the new dates for the meeting to the company.

(A summary of activities is given below).

B          Meetings

1.         Meetings were held in South Africa at the Transport Ministers’ meeting in Sun City with various governments and organizations.

2a)       The following States were contacted at the meeting and informed of developments regarding the second Project Implementation Team meeting.

1.      Cameroon

2.      Libya

3.      Nigeria

4.      Namibia

5.      South Africa

6.      Ethiopia

7.      Uganda

b)              Ethiopia’s Minister of Transport indicated that an election was to be held in his country shortly and therefore no meeting and decisions regarding transportation issues, including the AFRO-CAA, would have to be delayed for an unspecified period of time until a new government had been formed.

c)              Uganda’s Director of Civil Aviation was subsequently approached and briefed on the AFRO-CAA.  He accepted that Uganda may take on Ethiopia’s role in the event of the latter not being able to make an early decision on the PIT meetings.  Formal documentation on the AFRO-CAA was therefore prepared and sent to Uganda. Their technical staff are reviewing them.

d)              South Africa’s new Director General of Transport was briefed on ongoing developments on the AFRO-CAA.

e)              A briefing meeting was held with Namibian officials on the AFRO-CAA.  As mentioned above, Namibia stated that they would like other states to finance the promotion of the project together with Namibia.  The company agreed to make a request at the next PIT meeting to the States on such financing and for a refund to be made to States once the AFRO-CAA was established.  Present at the meeting were the following:

1.                  Deputy Minister of Transport

2.                  Permanent Secretary

3.                  Under Secretary Administration

4.       Under Secretary Government Air Transport

5.                  Director of Civil Aviation

3.         Meetings were held with the World Bank in Montreal and the latter advised that they would continue to work for the African Development Bank on financing the AFRO-CAA once it was established.  The African Development Bank stated that they could finance the project once infrastructure was required, but not before this.

4.         Meetings were held with South Africa’s Air Transport Navigation Services (ATNS), Chief Executive Officer on the AFRO-CAA.  Formal documents where also given to the ATNS who expressed an interest in supporting certain aspects of the AFRO-CAA.  A decision is awaited some time in August from their Board on this.

C         Programme Follow-up/ Marketing

            The company has continued to inform varies potential participating States on the developments taking place regarding progress on the AFRO-CAA.

D         SADC, EAC, IATA, ECA, AFRAA

A visit was made to the IATA headquarters in Geneva to brief the office of the Director General on the AFRO-CAA.  The organization wrote to encourage the promotional aspects of the project and briefed the company on the various initiatives they were considering for the African continent.   They requested to be kept regularly briefed on developments, should they wish to play a leading role in the future.   

E          MOUs Development

The MOUs were translated into French and efforts commenced to have them translated into Arabic.

F          AFCAC/NEPAD/ICAO

            Meetings was held with the AFCAC President and the AFCAC Secretary together with NEPADs advisor on Transport. They requested a comprehensive progress report which was prepared and sent to them.

            The AFCAC Secretary later communicated that he was studying the report and would convey his remarks to Namibia soon.

G         Legal

A coordination trip to various States regarding the MOUs awaits decisions from Namibia to the company as per the meeting with them mentioned above.

H         Funding

            The funding situation remains the same as previous reports and as outlined above.

I           Any other Business

Nigeria has confirmed that it will remain on stand-by to host the next Project Implementation Team meeting in the event Tripoli cannot host it early enough.