Monrovia – The Liberia Airport Authority (LAA) has reacted to a FrontPageAfrica May 24 publication captioned RIA Embarrassment: Serious Concerns as Liberia Prepares to Host ECOWAS Leaders.
FrontPageAfrica’s publication highlighted series of security and safety inadequacies at the Roberts International Airport which has concerns within the diplomatic circle ad Liberia prepares to host the 51st Ordinary Summit of ECOWAS Heads of States and Governments.
the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and United Nations Secretary-General would be special guests during the summit.
Information gathered by this paper indicates that being dissatisfied with the state of security in and around the airport facility, the security team of Netanyahu would take charge of the airport facility for the time he would be in the country during the summit are well on course.
In its attempt to provide clarity on this paper’s report, the LAA said in a press release issued Wednesday afternoon that preparations leading to the successful hosting of the Summit.
The LAA termed as unwarranted distractions which must not be heeded to.
“The LAA would also like to clarify that the security situation at the airport is safe as evidenced by all the airlines that are currently flying into the country, the most recent being the KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.
All other airlines flying into Liberia perform regular routine audits of the operations, facilities, safety and security of the airport and all of the findings have deemed RIA as being operationally safe and effective to handle their flights in conformity with International Aviation Standards,” the LAA release noted.
The Liberia Airport Authority, however, failed to address in its release safety and security concerns outlined in a Kenya Airlines Ground Handling Audit of the RIA.
The audit which was conducted from December 5-7, 2016 uncovered, amongst other things, that there was no training program at the RIA to ensure there is close monitoring to ensure that all required training are carried out in agreed frequencies as per their departmental requirements to track expiry dates.
The audit also discovered that airside training is not carried out for all staffs who have access to the airside.
In response, the RIA admitted to the auditing team that it does not have a training program, however, all airside personnel undergoes security training while flight operations personnel undergo ramp training twice a year.
As part of security measures, it was recommended that all airside personnel and flight operations personnel undergo security training which was to be implemented by March 31, 2017. It is unclear whether the airport management was able to meet this benchmark.
Furthermore, the audit noticed that there was no safety policy that will ensure a non-safety reporting to enhance proactive reporting and maintain safety management.
The management of RIA again in response to this observation noted that there is no safety management system at the airport and that the airside safety manual is mainly a guidance on safe operations while at the airside.
The audit raised the need for the development of a Safety Management System (SMS) which in progress and expected to be completed by June 30.
There have also been instances where the operator of the belt loaders and tug did not make a complete stop for break test as there were approaching the aircraft.
Standard break procedures were not followed which, as per policy all equipment operators serving a flight movement must conduct a break test once or twice before approaching the aircraft.
According to the Kenya Airways audit, safety reports are sometimes done at the RIA, but not all of these report are collated to ensure closure.
The audit noted that there was no evidence of any closure of findings raised.
The auditees recommended to the RIA to develop a specific audit handling procedure and establish a filing system on audit activities.
This task was expected to have been completed on March 31, 2017.
In addition to these concerns, the RIA continues to face lighting issues at night which prompted Brussels Airlines to change their flying schedules to Monrovia.