By
MALUM NALU
Civil Aviation Minister Puri Ruing has pledged to
make Papua New Guinea a safe country to fly in.
He made the pledge when launching PNG Air Services
five-year plan 2011-2015 at the Holiday Inn in Port Moresby on Monday night.
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“In this regard, the government of PNG must be
committed to support and promote a healthy civil aviation sector; must
facilitate access to the air transport network by the mass population; and
ensure the safe and smooth flow of aircraft, passengers and cargo within the
civil aviation system for the economic and social development of PNG,” Ruing
said.
“To enable the delivery of modern civil
aviation services, the government has
established a sound legislative and regulatory framework for civil aviation
that provides for the establishment of state aviation companies and entities to
carry out regulatory and service provision within the aviation sector, in a
more-efficient and effective manner and to meet government policy and
directives.
“PNG Air Services Ltd is one such company which
started operations on Jan 1, 2008.
“I am pleased that PNGASL satisfies government
policy by operating as a self-funding company to conduct its business
operations and maintenance of infrastructure.
“The challenge, however, is that PNGASL provides the
required services using facilities and assets inherited from the former Civil
Aviation Authority, majority of which are old, obsolete and out-of-date.”
Ruing said PNGASL had therefore embarked on a
ambitious but critical programme called ‘ CNS/ATM replacement programme’ for
the short, medium and longer term to mordernise its communications, navigation,
surveillance and air traffic management systems to keep abreast of the modern
trend.
“Once completed, the new communications, navigation
and surveillance systems will drive the revitalisation of the delivery of air
traffic management systems required in this growing aviation sector, which is
intrinsic to the well-being of the people of PNG,” he said.
“This mordernisation is contained in the 2011-2015
development plan.
“The focus is to shift from current ground-based
airways infrastructure to more-mordern and innovative satellite-based systems.
“This shift will also ensure that issues of land
ownership, vandalism, theft, insurance, logistics, operational and maintenance
costs are minimized and ultimately done away with.
“This mordenisation programme will obviously attract
a significant capital investment to the tune of US$95 million and the
government of PNG must be committed to ensure sufficient funds are allocated to
fund this substantial investment programme.”
Ruing said US$20m has already been provided for by
the Asian Development Bank while AusAID had also provided funding under the
transport sector support programme (TSSP) and memorandum of understanding
projects to assist PNGASL.
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