In the midst of opportunities encased within Tanzania, one of the world's most astounding wildlife regions, a master-plan is now being evolved to rejig the entire gamut of Tanzania's transport system and fire up the country's transport market to serve the transportation needs of nearby land-locked countries. Hon. Omari Nundu, air transport industry statesman and Tanzania's Transport Minister, is piloting this process, weaving into his workplan for air transport the all-important Yamoussoukro Decision. He reveals details of his new preoccupation to Aviation & Allied Business in this exclusive interview in Dar es Salaam.

Q: Honourable Minister, what would you say is the thrust of your administration as the Minister of Transport in Tanzania?

A: First of all, this is a new Ministry, in the sense that we had a Ministry of Infrastructure Development, which was a big ministry that involved road construction and air transportation in general, and of course the development of all the other infrastructure with respect to both railway and meteorology. The government broke it down to two ministries - the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Works.

The thrust of my administration is to continue in developing transportation systems so that they serve the country well. The belief is that transportation is a major source of income; it is also a support for all the other sectors. I am talking about source of income because here we have ports and harbours. But several countries who are our neighbours like Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Congo, Zambia and Malawi do not have these facilities. For them to import or export goods they depend on ports; and we have ports. So, the task now is to make sure that these ports are developed well enough to the extent that they can serve this country and the neighbouring countries. The ports need the railway system to complete the network; so we need to develop the railway system as well.

And then there is the question of air transportation; if we are to become that centre of business in the transportation of people and goods in the region, we need an efficient air transport system. We have been developing this for many years, before independence and after independence, and we made some headway. But suddenly things did not continue to work that well; so we decided to go into private sector partnership. And we tried that in this particular sector with Air Tanzania and the railways. They still had challenges. So, when I came here the first thing was to find out what the problem was, if we are still to continue with the private sector, and how we can cope with the marriage with the private sector. We want to see how we could revive the system on our own.

Our objective is to improve the system so that it can serve the country well; we also have the objective of transforming the whole transportation system to serve the country well and support the economy of the other neighbouring countries.

Q: You have stated readiness to address transportation challenges in Tanzania. What are your plans for Air Tanzania?

A: We have to develop air transportation for the domestic market; not a lot of people are using air transportation. We have limited number of operators in the country, and if the operators are limited monopoly comes in and they charge the fare that they want. So, my first strategy is to break that, and the way to do that is to resort to low-cost carriers. If we attract low-cost carriers here, more people can use air transport. There is Comair, which came in in November 2010, there is also Fly540, and another one also coming in to Tanzania. When Fly540 came in on the Dar es Salaam-Mwanza route, for instance, it was charging half of Precision Air's fare on the route, and Precision Air had to respond and brought down their fares between Mwanza and Dar es Salaam. So, we want more of these carriers to come in until the market is saturated.

When you come to the political arena our people still believe that you should have your own national carrier. Air Tanzania as at today is not flying. To revive this airline, our intention is to make their two aircraft serviceable. The airline will have those two aircraft and we will raise some capital in the budget for the airline to return to service with the two aircraft. We will equally appoint a management and a new board and let them take off from there.

Q: One of the major problems of air transport in Africa is weak infrastructure. What are your plans in terms of infrastructure development in Tanzania?

A: Through the budget, we try to allocate enough funds for infrastructure development. When it comes to air transportation, of course, the key infrastructure development areas are the airports and air navigation service equipment, and others. Individually, it is difficult to achieve. I headed civil aviation safety in SADC (South African Development Community) for ten and half years; and we were working together to introduce satellite-based system into the region and the V-sat project for SADC. But when it comes to the individual States, you cannot mobilize enough funds from tax payers to do all that.

So, in Tanzania now, apart from the support we are getting from the donor community, we passed a law last year on PPP. That is what we are going to use to develop the infrastructure; and to attract the private sector into joint financing and shareholding in all areas of transport infrastructure, not only air transport but also the railways and ports. That is the only solution for us, if we do not go in that direction, I do not see infrastructure development taking place soon.

Q: You were one of those in the forefront of the Yamoussoukro Decision in Africa. Is this Decision still relevant in Africa?

A: Anything to do with cooperation in Africa is important. In States in Africa, the air transport market is still very much under-developed. So, when you want to develop the market, you need to join forces. And that was the essence of the Yamoussoukro Declaration made in 1988, which was later changed to the Yamoussoukro Decision. SADC tried to introduce something similar. In 1992 we would have created one airspace in the SADC region; we had what we called Southern African Air Transport Regulatory Authority (SAATRA). But it had some challenges.

With the Yamoussoukro Declaration, we gave ourselves 8 years to have airlines owned by Africans (operating freely on the continent). But we realized that during the 8 years nothing was taking place. So, in 1994 we decided to ask every country to put the Yamoussoukro Declaration in their national laws. In November 1995 when this was supposed to take place, it did not. So, we decided to involve the Presidents. At the OAU (now AU) there is a position called decision of the Presidents - once the Presidents make a decision it becomes binding within 30 days. So, the AU met in July 2000 and the decision was made that the Yamoussoukro Declaration should become the Yamoussoukro Decision, thereby opening up everything and giving ourselves only one year for the 5th Freedom to be implemented. But every other Freedom, designation of airlines, among others, were free for African carriers. The only thing that remained then was the 5th Freedom; but even that was granted on a formula which was very difficult to calculate - that if there are the 3rd and 4th Freedom operators, then the 5th Freedom operator can come in and take only 20 percent of what was there - and that was to happen in one year. This meant that from 2001, every airline should be moving freely everywhere in Africa. So, on the 20th of August 2000, the Yamoussoukro Decision entered into force, and it was binding on all the States. And the condition is, for instance, if I decide to operate into Kenya under the Yamoussoukro Decision, Kenya is supposed to make all the facilitation and arrangements within 30 days for me to operate into Kenya. So, if people wanted to implement the Yamoussoukro Decision the conditions were simple and clear. The Yamoussoukro Decision is still valid.

Q: It appears the operators are the ones impeding the Decision even though the Presidents have signed the Decision?

A: That is exactly what is happening. The Presidents have made the Decision that should be binding in 30 days, and the conditions are so simple, you only tell another country that you are coming to that country and the country should not object but simply facilitate it.

The question one should ask is: 'why is Tanzania not telling Kenya that it wants to operate there under the Yamoussoukro Decision; why is Ethiopia not telling Kenya that it wants to operate there under the Decision; why is South Africa not telling Nigeria that it wants to fly into Nigeria under the Yamoussoukro Decision?' And all along they have been saying they want to implement the Yamoussoukro Decision. States want to take from another but not to give their own. There is that fear among countries that if I go to country X to ask for the chance to operate under the Yamoussoukro Decision, then country Y will also come to me for the same thing. I do not think the Yamoussoukro Decision will be implemented, unless we change the mind-set.

Q: How do we move forward on the Yamoussoukro Decision?

A: For me as the Minister here, I want our market to be consolidated into a bigger market; there is no doubt about that. I want to start from here and establish the market here. I want airlines to come here and establish themselves. I want to facilitate the airlines coming here. I have urged airline operators to come and register here even if they are not citizens of this country, even if their airline is 100 per cent owned by foreigners. Once the owners of such airlines decide that the airlines should be Tanzanian airlines, irrespective of the ownership, the airlines are going to get the support of this State. They will be given all the rights that a national carrier can be given. I want to start from there and see how it will develop.

In Africa, there is no problem in civil aviation, but in the air transport market. If we decide to be there (implement the Yamoussoukro Decision), I am ready. But we all need to be serious. Do not come here and tell me you want to operate to Tanzania under the Yamoussoukro Decision and you do not want other countries to operate under Yamoussoukro Decision into your own country.