Africa-Press – Eswatini. Operationalisation of the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) and opening up the air transport industry for liberalisation will spur economic growth in the continent.
This was disclosed yesterday during the official opening of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) validation workshop of the draft model Bilateral Air Services Agreements (BASA) at Esibayeni Lodge.
Minister of Public Works and Transport Chief Ndlaluhlaza Ndwandwe said Agenda 2063 was currently being implemented and one of the African Union flagship projects was the Single African Air Transport Market which aims to strengthen intra-regional connectivity between the capital cities of African countries and ensure the availability of a single unified air transport market in Africa, as an impetus to the continent’s economic integration and growth agenda.
“It is good to note that Eswatini is one of the 35 countries in Africa that have signed the solemn commitment to establish SAATM which constitutes 64 per cent of the total membership of the African Union and also one of the 20 AU Member States that have signed the memorandum of implementation for the operationalisation of SAATM,” the minister said.
He added that a majority of SADC and IOC Member States were SAATM members. He urged the few Member States who are yet to sign the solemn commitment to do so to enable them to move forward as one united continent.
“May I also encourage Member States who have signed the solemn commitment but are yet to sign the Memorandum of Implementation of the Yamoussoukro Declaration to also do so,” Ndwandwe stated.
The minister said one of the immediate measures required by Member States to actualise the declaration of the solemn commitment by the African Union Member States to the implementation of the 1999 Yamoussoukro Decision and the establishment of the SAATM requires Member States to review their BASAs to remove all restrictions on traffic rights under the third, fourth and fifth freedoms, frequencies, fares, and capacity.
He said adopting a model BASA, was one of the expected outcomes of the workshop. He this would hasten the process of reviewing BASAs among AU Member States.
According to the minister, BASA was one of the fundamental means of ensuring air transport interconnectivity between States and the current exercise was geared towards streamlining the instrument to conform with the provisions of the YD which will facilitate implementation of a common transport policy for the continent thus operationalising SAATM and opening up the air transport industry for liberalisation which would certainly spur economic growth in the continent.
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