■ GHANA: Mahama appoints new boards, bosses for Ghana Airports Company, Civil Aviation Authority.

Ghanaian president, John Mahama, has reconstituted the Boards of both the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) and the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) appointing new board chairmans and members.

■ GHANA: Mahama axes entire board of Ghana Airports Co. Ltd; new appointees due shortly.

The entire board of the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) has been dissolved by the Ghanaian president, John Mahama, just one week after the Minister of Transport, Dzifa Attivor, announced the dismissal of the firm's Managing Director,  Doreen Owusu-Fianko.

■ GHANA: Government okays $100million allocation for construction of a major international airport in Tamale.

The Ghanaian Parliament has greenlighted the allocation of USD100million needed for the construction of a major international airport in Tamale, capital of  the Northern Region. The Ghana Airports Company (GACL), who will ultimately be responsible for the running of the facility once it is open, are still to approve the project's final designs, currently being done by an unnamed Brazilian firm, before construction can begin.

● GHANA: Government considers selling off 4 major airports.

Press reports out of Ghana claim that the Ghanaian Ministry of Transport is considering selling off four major airports around the country in a bid to privatize the country's infrastructure though whether it is seeking to completely offload the assets to the private sector or looking for a public/private partnership is yet to be confirmed.

Newspaper reports in Ghana quote a leaked government document whose contents were initially rubbished and denied by the Ghanaian Transport Minister Mr. Collins Dauda, only to be acknowledged upon publication.

"One of such documents dated May 16, 2012 and signed by the Chief Director of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Enoch Cobbinah stated that `the Transport Ministry has endorsed and confirmed to the Finance Ministry the plan to undertake through Public Private Partnership procurement and rehabilitation, expansion and upgrade of the airports.'

The document clearly indicates that at least there has been a move by government to get assistance from private partners for the airports."

Read More Here [happyGhana]

The airports in question are: Accra's Kotoka International Airport, Tamale, Kumasi and Takoradi Airports all of which fall under the the authority of the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL), a government run parastatal.

Accra Kotoka International Airport (g2g)

Part of the necessity for privatization has come from Ghana's strong economic growth in recent years which has seen a significant increase in air transport usage with airlines such as Starbow Airlines,  CTK – CiTylinK, Fly540 and soon-to-be African super LCC FastJet fuelling the boom. Obviously, this has led and will lead to the urgent need to improve and expand existing aviation facilities in the country if it is to remain an attractive destination for start up airlines. In recent years, Ghana's principle gateway, Accra's Kotoka International Airport has seen some improvements and upgrades done to its infrastructure, though there is doubt that these have been enough to sustain the airport, whose transit figures have lept 400% since 2010.

Of course, it will all come with a hefty price tag hence the Ghanaians mulling privatization, but whether or not they want to leave their critical infrastructure entirely in the hands of foreigners has proven to be a very contentious topic. Since 1986, Ghana has moved to privatize many underperforming parastatals only to see the move socially and politically backfire when mass lay-offs were effected or in worst case scenarios (the now defunct Ghana Airways being a prime example) the entities went bust.