Dr. Stephen Chebrot is State Minister of Transport of Uganda. An accomplished top government functionary, Dr Chebrot has served as Member of Parliament, Minister for Labour, and Minister of the Local Government before becoming the Minister of State for Transport in 2011. In this exclusive interview with Aviation & Allied Business Journal in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania recently, he says Uganda favours the removal of barriers to air transport liberalization in Africa, as he also calls for support to African airlines and the private sector. He reveals also a strategic plan to transform the air transport industry in Kampala.

Q: What do you observe as the main issues facing the air transport industry especially in Uganda and in East Africa?

A: As you know, Uganda disbanded its own airline; we have no national flag carrier in Uganda. So, we have liberalized the air transport industry. We also have several Bilateral Air Service Agreements signed with various countries. We have another airline called Air Uganda, which is owned by a group of Ugandans, which is a private sector airline. It is not necessary for us to have a national flag carrier as such. But what we are more interested in is more competitive airlines in the industry because, for example, flights from Entebbe to London can cost twice as much as flights from London to Los Angeles which are almost the same distances. We think that this is not fair for Africa, and it's not fair to passengers who are coming into Africa. That is why we think that we may need to work with the private sector under a public-private partnership as well as encourage private investors to work alongside with the government so that they can force the prices down. Now it is becoming very difficult for many Africans to travel because of the high cost involved in using foreign airlines.

Q: How do you assess the impact of the aviation industry in Uganda so far, in terms of creating jobs and fulfilling the economic needs of Ugandans?

A: Since we liberalized the air transport industry, we now have close to 12 to 15 privately owned airlines. This has created opportunity for many Ugandans to get jobs in those airlines, and in ground handling and cargo operations because of cargo planes that also come in. In a way, it has improved the employment of the youths mainly.

Q: What are your targets regarding improving the airport infrastructure and making the airline business more vibrant before your tenure runs out?

A: In Uganda we have just discovered oil. We think that Uganda is going to be financially very stable. We think that the number of passengers coming into Uganda is going to increase because of the big tourism potential that exists and because of the stability that we are enjoying in Uganda. We have seen an increase in number of tourists already. We have a 16-year master-plan, part of which is to expand the size of the airport to international standards; and secondly we would like to increase the number of tourists coming into Entebbe to 10 million per year. That is our vision in the next five years. We also want to make it a hub for the Central and Eastern Africa region, to cater for Southern Sudan, Eastern Congo and Rwanda as well.

Q: Do you hope to drive this vision with the private sector, and if yes, in what areas are you working with the private sector?

A: As said earlier, government is not interested in owning planes as such, what we need to do is to create the necessary legal and institutional framework to enable the private sector to optimally function.

If there are any impediments between our country and the countries which we have signed agreements with, we will try as much as possible to sort out those problems. But we want it to be driven by the private sector.

Q: How do you think Ministers can raise political will and work together to provide the support the industry requires now to grow?

A: I think all these are, of course, related to the Yamoussoukro Decision. That Yamoussoukro Decision provided a very clear vision for countries in Africa, which all the countries shared and, therefore, they have a shared objective. Therefore, I like to believe that they would also share the activities to be performed. My view is that hard work is required by the Ministers and this is basically through collaboration, because after the Yamoussoukro agreement there has been very little collaboration and very little implementation as well. I look forward to putting in place a strategic framework to improve collaboration and to improve efforts on the objectives which were contained in the Yamoussoukro Decision. The issue is that the currently many airlines come from Europe, and very few from Japan or China. They have some kind of monopoly now; and they will be benefiting from non-implementation of the Yamoussoukro Decision. But definitely we will have to collaborate with our colleagues to ensure that we implement all in the Decision which were agreed by the Presidents and by the Council of Ministers. In addressing the challenges of the Yamoussoukro Decision, we have to do what we refer to as root-cause analysis to find out what was the major constraint which made the Yamoussoukro agreement not operational, so that they can be addressed. So, that, in my view, is the issue we are going to start with; once we have found out that, then we can find the strategic activities to do which will address that constraint.

Q: What is your vision for the air transport industry in Uganda?

A: My vision is, first of all, to increase the number of people using the airlines to 10 million in the next five years from the present 1 million. Also, we want to promote other airlines like Japan Airlines, China Airlines, etc. to be involved in the air transport industry in Uganda. Many businessmen in Uganda do their business in Dubai, but quite often, if they are using Kenya Airways, for instance, they have to change planes, sometimes twice before they get down to Dubai. So, we are trying to get the airline from Dubai to fly straight to Entebbe, bring the passengers in there, and then move back with other passengers as well. We think this is very strategic and is to the benefit of Ugandans.

Q: What are your plans in terms of African connectivity?

A: Currently, the worst thing that's happening in Africa or Uganda is that if, for example, I want to fly from Uganda to Accra, I may have to fly first to London before I connect to Accra. So, the interconnectivity between sister countries in Africa is still very poor. And for that I want to collaborate with Civil Aviation Authorities in East and Central Africa to see how we can link up our own airlines.