East African Community seeks to Harmonize Regional Air Transport

Tuesday 23, August 2011

The East African Community (EAC) needs to harmonise air transport regulations to enhance its integration process, Beatrice Kiraso, the EAC deputy secretary-general in charge of political federation, has said.

"The sector is critical and, if well managed and regulated, it will greatly contribute to the well-being of the people of East Africa by offering quick, easy and cost-effective transport options," Kiraso said durind a stakeholders’ meeting in Kigali recently. "The contribution of this sector to tourism, horticultural development, regional investments, employment and skills development cannot be under-estimated," she added, noting that the sector also needed to be liberalised.

The meeting aimed at exploring ways of harmonising regional air transport regulations and liberalising the sector.

If the regulations are harmonised, aircraft will use the skies of member countries without restriction.

This will ease the transportation of goods, people and services within the region, experts say.

Ladislaus Matindi, a principal civil aviation officer at the EAC secretariat, said there was need for discussions at the regional level towards embracing a common approach to reverse the existing barriers in the sector.

Matindi said, was a common solution to the existing physical barriers that slow the development of the sector is needed.

The New Vision Newspaper