More grief for GH

[Yak97]

Six Ghanair Management Staff Interdicted
Six former and current management staff members of Ghana Airways have been interdicted. The six include the Head of Finance, Alex Sykes; Head of Legal Services, Bethel Donkor; Head of International Relations and Alliances, Fred Taylor and Head of Engineering, Atta Badu. The rest are the former Chief Executive (Technical), Captain Paul Fordjour and the former Head of Engineering, Joe Baah.

The interdiction is based on recommendations of a forensic audit report into the activities of the national carrier. The decision, which came from the Board of the airline, is to allow for thorough investigations into aircraft acquisition and maintenance, which has been fraught with some level of mismanagement.

The Managing Editor of the Independent newspaper, Egbert Fagbille Jnr, who disclosed this to Joy FM said some of the officials have confirmed their interdiction. The Chief Executive of Ghana Airways, Philip Owusu will however not confirm or deny the story, when contacted by Mr Fagbille.

Source: JOY ONLINE

Is this airline in terminal decline or what??

[Engineer]

Is this airline in terminal decline or what??

Has been for years

Strange not to see the name Quartey on that list :)

[TimS]

You can't 'interdict' someone who left two and a half years ago !!

Interesting to note that that a few months ago the local media were forced to publically retract a number of accusations of 'questionable behaviour' by Quartey (cash payments, tax avoidance etc) made immediately after his departure.

I am not particularly 'leaping to his - or anyone else's - defence' just clarifying the actual position - the 'forensic audit' may or may not of course lead to further accusations about people no longer with the company.

[Yak97]

More Troubles At Ghanair

Ghanair’s Chief Executive Officer, Phillip Owusu last Friday, showed his other side to colleague board members when he walked out of a Board meeting, threatening never to return. At the meeting, Mr. Owusu expressed his frustration at certain actions of the Board Chairman, Dr E. R. K. Dwemoh. When matters got to a head, he stormed out of the meeting with two other Board members, Albert Osei and Mrs Adu-Gyamfi chasing him to rescind his decision.
But Mr. Owusu will not budge and left for home. The Board Chairman therefore issued a notice after the meeting that since the airline cannot afford to be without a Chief Executive at this critical point, the Airline’s Head of Administration, B.K. Amonoo and Chief Pilot, Captain Fosu have been appointed by the board as joint Chief Executives in Mr. Owusu’s absence.

When the Independent newspaper reached Mr. Owusu, he denied that he had resigned his position but could not tell when he is to resume work. Asked if he was aware of the two appointments and if it meant he was no longer in charge, he said “Go and ask the board chairman since he made the appointment”.

But in an interview with JOY FM, the Board Chairman, Dr Dwemoh said the appointment of the two new Chief Executives was temporary pending the return of Mr. Owusu. He explained that the Airline’s Board was last Friday, scheduled to meet President Kufuor to present measures they had taken to resuscitate the airline. They therefore held a meeting to review the measures, but the Chief Executive walked out of the meeting after the Board insisted that certain measures (he didn’t mention the measures) ought to have been taken before the meeting with the President.

“It appeared the Chief Executive thought that we were trying to interfere in his work, because each time the Board met, we raised the same issue. The Board on the other hand wanted to impress upon him that we thought that point was very important, that is why we kept talking about it”, Mr. Dwemoh added.

But the Chief Executive walked out of the meeting and didn’t return until the meeting closed. The Board, according to Dr Dwemoh, had no alternative than to temporarily appoint two people to act in his stead.

Dr Dwemoh said the Board expected Mr. Owusu to resume work today, Monday, to take over from the two acting Chief Executives. Nothing has been heard from him so far, although he has told sections of the press that he has not resigned.

The Board is now waiting to hear a word from Mr. Owusu. Dr Dwemoh was however emphatic that no decision has been taken to sack Mr. Owusu. “We haven’t come to that conclusion and I don’t think we want to come to any such conclusion, because he is doing well and if he would probably co-operate with the Board, it will not be necessary to take any such action”, he added. The Board Chairman dismissed rumours that there was acrimony between him and Mr. Owusu.

Source: Independent /Joy Online

[Yak97]

Ghanair Chief Executive Returns To Work
The controversy over the status of Ghana Airways Chief Executive, Philip Owusu has been resolved following his return to office after storming out of a board meeting last week. Two joint Chief Executives appointed temporarily to run the airline in his absence have been withdrawn after Mr Owusu resumed full-time duty on Tuesday.

The airline’s Board had been expecting an official letter from Mr. Owusu to indicate whether or not he intended to terminate his appointment over an apparent disagreement with the Board. Mr Owusu is alleged to have threatened to resign over what he felt was the Board’s attempts to frustrate his plans to revive the struggling national airline.

But the Board Chairman, Dr. Edward Dwemoh told JOY FM that they did not receive any letter of resignation from the Chief Executive. Rather, the Chief Executive reported at a scheduled meeting between the Board and the Council of State on Tuesday morning signifying his return to post. He has since resumed work.

Dr Dwemoh insisted that what led to the Chief Executive’s walkout at the Board meeting last week was normal routine discussions, which the Chief Executive misconstrued as an interference with, his work.

JOY FM enquiries revealed that the disagreement between the Board and the Chief Executive was over the lease of DC-10 aircraft to transport the airline’s backlog of passengers. But the Board Chairman says the issue has been appropriately resolved with the return of the Chief Executive to work. “Since he is back, it means that there are no other problems. When we meet tomorrow (Wednesday), I hope that everything will be back to normal”, Dr Dwemoh noted.

Source: JOY ONLINE

Question: Did the DC10 turn up? Who's is it/was it? Reg? Any ppruners in ACC?

[Engineer]

Rumour has it that the DC10 that GH looking at is sitting in the desert in the states.

[Yak97]

Quote

Govt will not privatise Ghana Airways - Anane

Kumasi, Nov 3, GNA - Dr Richard Anane, the Minister of Roads and Highways, has said that the government has no intention of privatising Ghana Airways.

The government, he said, would rather support the airline to be self-reliant.

Dr Anane, MP for Bantama was addressing supporters of the NPP at Patase in the Bantama constituency in Kumasi on Sunday to explain government policies and programmes to them and also to listen to their concerns.

He said when the government took over the administration of the country Ghana Airways was indebted to the tune of 475 billion cedis.

He said in 2001 the debt was reduced to 242 billion cedis and that through the dynamic leadership of President J A Kufuor the airline made a profit of 16 billion cedis from June to July 2002.

Unquote

Wasn't this the same man who selected Nationwide (against all advice) to take over (privatise?) GH. Obviously nobody's coming up with a big enough back hander to make it worthwhile at the moment.

[KiloMIke]

The 'new' DC10 has arrived.

Its a DC10-30 and the registration is 9GAND.

I understand that it orginally went into service with American under reg N140AA in May 1973. After that it went to work for Hawaiian.

Not sure where it was before GH got hold of it but I did hear it was in Shannon Ireland.

[Cardinal Puff]

Yak, buddy...

Perhaps you're thinking of the word "indict". Interdict is usually a little more permanent.

I know, I know! Pedantic mode now switched off.

(Not bad for a Dutchman from Pretoria , eh? - GO BULLE!)

[Yak97]

From Bird.ch S/n 46713 Del 10.7.74 TT 90462 (Corrosion?)!!

From the BAE aircraft trading page they have these aircraft for sale at 4.5M US each:

s/n 46712 built 1973 tt 93912 tl 21412 1 70483 2 73415 3 64625 1 14819 2 15123 2 13555 price 4500
s/n 46713 built 1974 tt 89870 tl 19490 1 73957 2 62177 3 61415 1 15239 2 13268 3 14073 price 4500

4.5M US for a nearly 30 year old DC10-30 (non CF) with 90,000 hours. Wow what a bargain!

Well lets see how long this one runs until it joins its sisterships impounded in Rome.

YAK97

ps Cardinal Puff - the wording was from the news report (Well I can be pedantic too!)

[Boss Raptor]

$4.5 mil what a bargain?!

Think I would say what a rip-off!

[Engineer]

SN 46712
http://www.jetphotos.net/census/aircraft.php?reg=N140AA&msn=46712

SN 46713
http://www.jetphotos.net/census/aircraft.php?reg=N141AA&msn=46713

Boss supply and demand is the phrase here one would imagine GH has no bargining power at all

Interesting point that begs a question to be asked "who will carry out any heavy rects required" Cannot not imagine Alitalia is a candidate on the list :D

[Gunship]

Lo TimS .. long time for me (and you).

Has anyone got any idea what route the "new" DC 10 will fly. Please tell me Accra - Jhb - Accra - please.

This London flight kills me (beer belly is twice whwt it used to be as I have a local girlfriend in London these days)

Tip : Her name is Stella ;)

[Engineer]

Accra-Kumasi

safe route ensures it does not get impounded :O

Forget stella stick with star cheaper alternative :ok:

[Yak97]

Boss Raptor: I was being ironic.

However as GH were supposed to have paid 1M USD PER MONTH for a DC10 (and they had it for 40+ months!) perhaps they did think 4.5M was a bargain.

Or there was the slight matter of the 57M USD to buy 2 DC10 from Malaysia & 3 DC9-51 for Venezuela - another bargain.

[Engineer]

Was it not $25 mill for the malaysian aircraft and one of them was on a bond that was not paid resulting in certain documents being kept back so the aircraft sat at Accra for a long time.

The $1 mill/mth was not for 40months but 3 months maybe the person who set that up could have been on the original interdicted list.

Forget "Cry Freedom" look at "Cry Mismanagement" could be a new west africa slogan :O

[Yak97]

Hi Engineer, I have unearthed the following:

1. In Dec99 Jnr stated that GH had taken out a loan for 55M US from the KBC bank for additional aircraft.

They purchased:

DC10-30 9G-ANB/46959 in 07/10/99 Built 20/12/76 (23 yrs old)
DC10-30 9G-ANC/46933 in 12/03/00 Built 28/05/74 (26 yrs old)
Both came via World Airways/Malaysia. I did hear that about the docs and that the one aircraft sat at ACC for a long time. This may have been 9G-ANC as 9G-PHN was brought back into use in 06/2000, which would tie up with the delivery dates.

DC9-51 9G-ADY/47679 in 07/07/99 Built 29/10/75 (24 yrs old) This aircraft didn't last that long being W/o on 13/11/00 with a wheels up landing
DC9-51 9G-TGC/47796 - Built 26/02/79. Never delivered?

So out of 55M - say 25M for 2 DC10 (12M each) & 12M for 2 DC9 (6M each) leaves 18M for?????????????

2. DC10-30 9G-PHN/46554 leased from Skyjet in Belgium? from 31/05/96 to 02/2000 and from 03/06/2000 until???. Skyjet were apparently getting 1M per month for this aircraft (built 24/01/73 so even older than the rest!).

Mismanagement on a vast scale!