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The Minister of Aviation, Mr Joseph Kofi Adda has reacted to media reports accusing him and the Managing Director (MD) of the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL), Mr Yaw Kwakwa, of diverting a contract that has been awarded to LCB Worldwide (LCB) for the disinfection of airports in Ghana. 

In a statement issued Friday, May 15, 2020, Mr Adda explained,"In-as-much as the Ministry and its agencies welcome companies interested in any aspect of business in the sector which they qualify to undertake, especially the likes of LCB, which may have specialized products and services relevant to the operations of the aviation industry, the Ministry and its agencies will not countenance any engagement that does not go through due process as provided for under the Public Procurement Act."

Below is a copy of the statement

Statement on Media Reports on LCB Contract and Disinfection of Airports

Accra, 15th May, 2020 – The attention of the Ministry of Aviation (MoA) has been drawn to media reports accusing the Minister for Aviation, Hon. Joseph Kofi Adda, and the Managing Director (MD) of the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL), Mr. Yaw Kwakwa, of diverting a contract that has been awarded to LCB Worldwide (LCB) for the disinfection of airports in Ghana. 

The allegation is designed to force the Ministry and GACL to contract the company’s services under duress.

In-as-much as the Ministry and its agencies welcome companies interested in any aspect of business in the sector which they qualify to undertake, especially the likes of LCB, which may have specialized products and services relevant to the operations of the aviation industry, the Ministry and its agencies will not countenance any engagement that does not go through due process as provided for under the Public Procurement Act.

By the standards and procedures of the sector Ministry and its agencies, LCB has no contractual relationship with GACL, and the accusation of contract diversion is blatantly false. 

In order to address this unfounded allegation, the Ministry of Aviation wishes to respond as follows:

The recent media interviews granted by Messrs. David Kwadwo Amoateng and Nana Poku, who are the Greater Accra Regional Branch Chairman and General Secretary of the Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) respectively, were ill-informed and calculated to cause disaffection for the two officials; 
Matters of aviation policy and airport management principles and standards as well as internationally approved procedures are highly specialized subjects that Messrs. Amoateng and Poku are not sufficiently qualified to make pronouncements or pass judgment on, especially regarding the ability, management capacity and competence of senior management officers of the sector, as they are not the appointing authority to question the positions of these two senior government officials; 

The Minister for Aviation has demonstrated excellence since assuming leadership of the sector in 2018. On the Minister’s watch, Ghana attained an Effective Implementation score of 89.89%, the highest by an African country at the time, after an audit by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in April 2019. Indeed, at ICAO’s 40th Triennial Assembly in Montréal, Canada, in October 2019, this feat was duly recognized when Ghana became the only country after Qatar to receive awards for aviation safety and security, with Mr. Adda receiving the distinguished honour of being the first Ghanaian Aviation Minister to address an ICAO Assembly; 

On airport management, Ghana’s Kotoka International Airport (KIA), in a historic first, received two prestigious awards during this year’s Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Awards by Airport Council International (ACI), the global trade representative of the world’s airports. KIA topped the ranking as Africa’s ‘Best Airport by Size and Region’ whiles Terminal 3 was named the continent’s ‘Most Improved’ airport. These landmark achievements were recorded under the sectoral oversight and managerial leadership of Messrs. Adda and Kwakwa, respectively; 

For the avoidance of doubt, we state emphatically that neither the Minister for Aviation nor the MD of GACL has diverted any contract for LCB, and may we also add that the latter has no contract with either MoA or GACL to undertake any form of disinfection or installation of any types of gadgets, as the Governing Board of GACL has not approved such a contract for LCB;