An overhaul of the Civil Aviation Department (CAD) designed to promote greater transparency and accountability within the Ministry of Transport and Aviation will be completed by December 2015, according to Minister of Transport and Aviation Glenys Hanna-Martin.
Hanna-Martin told Guardian Business that the recent abrupt closure of the Staniel Cay airstrip over safety concerns and the subsequent impact on the cay's tourism sector, demonstrates the need for a civil aviation authority to effectively nip such maintenance concerns in the bud before they take heavy tolls on family island economies.
CAD's current responsibilities include regulatory oversight, airport management, air navigation services, and safety oversight. Given CAD's large portfolio, Hanna-Martin said the establishment of an airport operating authority would result in a far more transparent and swift system to prevent similar damages.
"When you separate functions you have greater transparency. Now you have one agency doing everything. That accountability and transparency is impacted when you have one agency responsible for everything.
"When you separate and one must answer to the other, then you have greater transparency," she said.
Hanna-Martin said that the ministry continued work with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) on a $219,500 contract to develop the infrastructure and human capital required to create the Civil Aviation Authority, which will serve as the regulator for policy and regulation. The authority would in turn remove all airport management duties from CAD to the airport authority in compliance with IATA.
"We were working towards an August date, which may not be realistic now. It may be pushed into December, but in this transition there will be an airport operating agency, which will have singular focus, which is oversight of airports.
"The regulatory oversight now will go to the authority. That regulatory body would be the agency that would look at a runway if there's an issue and tell the airport operating authority that it must be dealt with," said Hanna-Martin.
The minister spoke in response to both the Staniel Cay community and Exuma Chamber of Commerce President Pedro Rolle, who argued that the sudden closure and lost business could have been avoided through stronger local governance, particularly in maintenance responsibilities.
The government closed the airport on April 9 on the grounds that the airstrip was too badly damaged to fix through typical patching. The ministry of works estimates that the repaying on the strip could cost upwards of $1 million and take up to two months once work begins.
Hanna-Martin told Guardian Business that she expected work to start within two weeks.
The Staniel Cay community issued a statement on the airstrip closure last week expressing their frustrations with the government's slow response. The joint statement argued that the government should have postponed the maintenance until the cay's offseason, despite the safety concerns expressed by engineers with the Ministry of Aviation and the Ministry of Works.
"The full resurfacing of the runway, raising the crown, adding lights, etc. could be scheduled for the offseason (any time from approximately mid-August until mid-November). This course of action is logical, whereas the current situation is devastating to the Staniel Cay economy and all local businesses. Cancelations for hotels and rental homes are happening every day.
"Yachts who were able to meet their private plane at Staniel, have changed their plans and are not coming to the area. Already, in the week since the runway was closed, the local economy has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars and the trickledown effect on local boat rentals, cart rentals, stores, guides, etc is significant and devastating," read the statement.
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