Air Botswana fined over P1million

Fresh from a P91million bailout to restore the fleet to full capacity, Air Botswana will start spending the taxpayers’ money paying penalty fines of over P1million to Civil Aviation Authority of Botswana - a fine that arose from management’s negligence of duty.

Botswana Guardian’s investigation can reveal that CAAB penalised the national airline a total sum of P1, 110, 000. 00 for contravening certain provisions of the Civil Aviation (Aircraft Operations) Regulations 2022, Regulations 134, Air Botswana OMD 3.2.2.4 which clearly could be interpreted as negligence of duty by some of the high-ranking officials of Air Botswana.

Ironically this coincides with government’s concerted effort to ‘save the national airline’ with the aim to privatise it. Recently Minister of Transport and Public Works, Eric Molale told parliament that a lot of effort is required towards revitalisation of Air Botswana, with focus on diversification of revenue streams, prepping the airline for possible privatisation, according to the minister.

Presenting his ministry budget proposals for the 2023/2024 financial year, Molale said they are working on a turnaround strategy for the struggling national air carrier.

He said part of the revenue diversification includes the cargo project, which the minister said is well underway, with the airline already signed agreements with cargo handling agents at key source markets such as China, India, Indonesia, Singapore, Germany and United Arab Emirates.

Molale said the government is committed to ensuring that the airliner remains a going concern, kept afloat by the t injection of P91 million to restore the fleet to full capacity. Additionally, under the current budget, the ministry will avail P166 million to Air Botswana.

The minister said the funding will eliminate complaints about Air Botswana’s operations, which have been plagued by inconsistencies that continue to frustrate customers, in particular, delayed flights.

But, before the ink on his writing could dry up, Air Botswana was at it again, this time caught red-handed in the act violating CAAB regulations as they allowed two of their cabin crew members (names withheld) to operate with expired competency checks on numerous occasions which allegedly are more than 15 times.

Botswana Guardian has it in good authority that CAAB carried investigations on the matter and found that an Air Botswana aircraft bearing the Botswana national registration A2-ABM was used by Air Botswana to do commercial errands with the two cabin crew members.

Among the many questions asked by commentators is where were the management personnel responsible for flight operations when all these happened.

Having found the national airline guilty of contravening the above regulations, CAAB penalised them and allegedly directed them to pay the total penalty within days. AB was given 30 days to appeal to CAAB to review the penalty assessment.

All efforts to solicit a response from Air Botswana General Manager, Agnes Khunwana were not successful at the time of going to press. This is despite the fact that a questionnaire was sent well in advance as well as reminders through numerous mobile calls and WhatsApp follow-ups. All they could say was that they are working on a response.

CAAB spokesperson, Modipe Nkwe said that, “We are a regulator, we are an oversight body, we have an authority, over our operators and every time we recognise there has been oversight we sanction and that is what we have done on Air Botswana”.