NOT FOR PUBLICATION INSTITUTE OF CURRENT WORLD AFFAIRS B- 67 Wsshlngton, D.C. ast Africa High Commission: November 2, 195/ (22) The ast African Directorate of Civil Aviation Mr. Walter S. Roers Institute of Current World Affairs 522 Fifth Avenue New York 6, New York Dear Mr. Rogers The considerable size of Best Afr, ica, with populated centers separated by wide tracts of rugged, poorly watered country through which road and rail routes are built with difficulty and then provide only slow service, gives air transport an important position in the economy of the area. Access to ast Africa from rope and elsewhere in the world is aso greatly enhanced by air transport, which need not follow the deviating contours of the continent. Businesses with b:'enches throughout @set Africa need fast assenger services to carry executives on supervisory visits; perishable commodities, important items for repair of key machlner, and )ivestock for breeding purposes provide further traffic; and a valuable tourist traffic is much dependent upon air transport. The direction and coordination of civil aviation, to help assure the quality and amplitude of aerodromes, aeraio directiona and communications methods, and aircraft safety standards, is an important responsibility which logically fsIs under a central authority. This central authority is the Directorate of Oivil Aviation, a department of the ast Africa High Commission. The Directorate, as an interterritorlal service already in existence, came under the administration of the High Oommisslon on its effective date of inception, January I, 98, an more specifically under the Commissioner for Transport, one of the four principal executive officers of the High Commission, on May I, 199. The Director of the 'Directorate of Civil Aviation is responsible to the Oommissioner for Transport, who in turn is responsible to the High Commission. The Directorate is subdlvlde into six main groups: Operations, EicensinE and Air Navigation ,aw, Aircraft Safety, Telecommunications, Finance, stablishment, and Air Registration Board. The senior officers of the Directorate in 92 were the Director of' Oivll Aviation, hlef Operations Officer, Assistant to the Director, Ohief Telecommuni- cations Officer, Chief Air Traffic Control Offlcer, two Surveyors of the Air Registration Boar, Accountant, and Staff Officer. At the end of I2 the staff of the Directorate Inc.de 116 uropeans, I Asians, and 200 Africans, more than half of whom were emploMed in the Aeraio Service. In 90 iffl- cultles in obtaining satisfactory clerica staff were attributed to higher salaries offered by commercial firms in Nalrobl. xtreme difflcuty was also experienced in recruiting uropean telecommunications staff from the After some eight months of efort, incudlng extensive advertising, not a slnEle radio officer had been found. The unbalance com.ositlon of the staff an resultant wastage was deplore in the I31 annual report of th Directorate. Early in 198 increase accommodation or the headquarters staff became available when the Refugee Organization moved, leaving ell the vacate space except for two small offices to the Directorate. The Air Registration Boar had permanent offices includino an examination room at Nairobi West Aerodrome in 950. Beyond office equipment, properties include considerable communications equipment handed over in 19O by the East African Posts and Telecommunications Department. As with other High Commission Departments, housing for headquarters personnel was difficult to obtain. With the exception of one government quarter allocated to the Directorate, all other officers were accommodated in 1948 in private houses found by them and rented by the High Commission. Accommodation for Air Traffic Control officers was better at outlying stations, where territorial governments usually found accommodation for these officers. In this section on aministratlve orAnization and personnel only the membership of a few boies connecte with the Directorate will be given; their functions will be explain.d below. There is an Air Advisory Oouncil which includes the Oommissioner for Transport as Ohairman, two representatives each appointe by the Governments of Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika two by the High Oommission and one by the British Resident, Zanzibar. Among the appointees to the first Oouncil were the Secretary for Oommerce and Industry of the Kenya Government the Attorney General of Tanganyika the Aministrative Secretary of the Uganda Government, the Aviation Oontrol Officer of Zanzibar and the High Oommission appointee, Sir Alfred incent from the Transport Advisory Council. The Assistant .to the Director acts as Secretary of the Oouncil. There are also an Air Transport Licensing Authority and an Air Transport Yicensing Advisory Board. This Board has a Ohairman, who also represents Kenya interests an three other members, representing the interests of Ugana, Tanganyika an Zanzibar. The Assistant to the Director acts as Secretary. The 1551 report of the Directorate.state that the administration an operations of the Directorate though necessarily involving a certain amount of costly experiment due to the pioneer nature of commercial air transport in ast Africawere being undertaken with full consideration of the limited financial resources of the ast African territories. hile there was nt yet any settled long-term pattern of costs firm efforts" to exercise the greatest practical economy were reporte. The finances of the Directorate are not self-balancing. xcept for the relatively small aounts from licensing and registration, fees, the remuneration for services rendered accrues to the aerodrome owners (usually the Territorial Governments) in landing fees an oes not appear as a credit item in the igh Commission estimates. .mven if the landin fees and other chages were .aid ireotly to the Directorate they would fall far short of the costs of services provided. xemption of international trunk services and local scheduled services from customs charges on aircraft fuels taken on at the air.ports amount to a subsidy to the operators, and it is unlikely that anding fees even cover aerodrome maintenance costs. The Justification of uneconomic omeration and of subsidization of fares and costs was explained in terms of "wider relation" of the contribution of air transport to "progress an economic develo.ments of the territories." 1 The expenditures of the Directorate in the years I-IO include both the yearly amounts met by contributions from the East African Governments and vote by the Oentral Legislative ASsembly (I in following table) and the expenditures on groun services II in followin table) which were separately voted y the Legislative Assembly and dbited to a suspense account pendin the agreement in June I51 between the UK and ast African Governments on the division of costs of ground services to trunk and local systems. JBG-67 . Expenditures of of Civil Aviation ()* Directorate ''o/,- .198-190'ao'-' xpenditures of Directorate ''Other tha'n' '.rou'n"sriCeS) I,212 2,58 25,58p II. Expenditurgs Gr,ou.nd_, S.e.rvices TOTA 33,860 / ,I 56 56,325 About half of the increase of regular exenaitures (I) in 1950 over ]99 was due to enhanced personal emoluments following a salary revision. The estimate of total expenditure in ]9I was 278,916, the great increase being largely due to the assumption of responsibility by the Directorate for Aeradio Services. The 192 estimates of expenditure were 277,106, showin a close relationship to those of the previous year. With the establishment and functions of the Directorate more stabilized, future costs of the Directorate and its services were expected to conform to a more predictable pattern from year to year. The regular expenditures (other than expenditures charged to suspense account) less the revenue of the Directorate have been met by the three malnlan territories end Zanzibar. As the following table shows, of the total contributions in each of the years 198 through 190 Kenya contributed about I6 percent, Tanganyika I percent, Uganda I. percent and Zanzibar about 7. percent. The other expenditures (II) on ,ground services were during 198-1990 debited to a suspense account. In accordance with the agreement reached in June 19.I the UK pays the full costs of air traffic control and aeradio services to international trunk airline operators and 2 ercent of the cost of like services which are used commonly by trunk and local operators. This settlement, the 19I Directorate report commented, is of financial benefit to East Africa since the advantages of trunk services are enjoyed free of air traffic control and aeradio costs at the expense of the UK. Agreement on a system for apportion- ing the balance of the costs between the East African Governments was also reached. The revenue of the Directorate in the years 198-1950 was as follows (): Rents receive Sale of Air Transport Licenses 1,49 968 1,047 82 Aircraft licenses I,16 1,982 Sale of Aviation Documents ,5 2 8 Total table above, taken from the High Coission financial reports differ from those given in the annual renorts of the Directorate ,hich were as follos: 8,210 in 19, ]9,889 in 199, and 28,871n 1950. The amounts collected for personnel licenses and certificate of airworthiness were distributed to the territorial governments in 198 and 99. In 99 it was agreed that in 190 revenue dshould be pai into High Commission fnds, with one exception. The exception concerne fees in respect of mdical examinations carried out in Kenya and Tanganyika (there are no approved examinatio,