“I am here today to announce the preliminary outcome of the recent audit that was conducted on South Africa by the United Nation’s specialised agency responsible for aviation called the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).In South Africa, the responsibility of promoting and maintaining a safe, secure, and sustainable civil aviation environment rests with the Department of Transport.
On the 1 October 1998, the ANC government entrusted this responsibility to the South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA), following the enactment of the now repealed South African Civil Aviation Authority Act, of 1998, which was later repealed by the Civil Aviation Act of 2009 which came into effect on 31 March 2010.
In as much as this audit was conducted on South Africa, it measured whether the South African Civil Aviation Authority discharged its mandate as assigned by Government.
ICAO was established back in 1944 by various states to set standards to ensure a safe, efficient, secure, economically sustainable, and environmentally responsible civil aviation sector.
It works hand-in-hand with member states to ensure that countries conforms to stipulated standards and recommended practices. South Africa is one of the 191 ICAO Member States.
ICAO continuously conduct research to introduce programmes and initiatives that will elevate the levels of aviation safety and security across the world.
At some point in time, there were global and widespread concerns about the apparent inability of some of the member states, and their respective civil aviation authorities to carry out their safety oversight functions.
Global effect
According to ICAO, there are over 100,000 flights taking off and landing in the world’s aviation network on a daily basis. This means that at any given second or minute, there are aircraft in the air.
It also means that at any given time, there is an aircraft from a particular country flying over another country, carrying people from various countries. If anything happens to that aircraft, the effect will be felt by multiple countries.
The global concern on the apparent inability of some of the Member States to carry out their safety oversight functions let to ICAO introducing the ICAO Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP).
The programme is achieved by assessing the effectiveness of the implementation of eight critical elements of a safety oversight system by member states.
Eight critical elements
The elements are as follows:
- Primary aviation legislation;
- Specific operating regulations;
- State civil aviation system and safety oversight functions;
- Technical personnel qualifications and training;
- Certification and approval obligations;
- Technical guidance, tools and the provision of safety critical information;
- Surveillance obligations;
- Resolution of safety concerns
I must point out that completing an audit without a significant safety concern is extremely important.
This means that based on a proclamation of a Significant Safety Concern against a particular state, other countries or regions may take a decision to ban airlines and other operators of the country which a Significant Safety Concern has been raised against from flying over and into their airspace. They may also prohibit their own operators from flying into the country with a Significant Safety Concern.
In auditing terms a Significant Safety Concern is simply an adverse finding or a qualified audit opinion.
Audit results with a Significant Safety Concern finding are devastating and far reaching. It would primarily have a severe implication in relation to the safety of the travelling public. In our case, it could put at risk the jobs of the over 33,000 aviation personnel licence-holders, and approximately 227,000 other jobs occupied by South Africans employed in an industry directly linked to air travel.
An ICAO adverse finding could also clip the wings or simply ground the nearly 13,000 aircraft on the South African Aircraft Register and also erode the R50bn contribution that air transport contributes to the South African GDP.
In 2016 ICAO informed South Africa of its intention to conduct another audit based on the continuous Monitoring Approach programme. The audit was conducted from 8-18 May 2017.
The audit was an on-site assessment, which included six audit areas namely legislation, organisation, personnel licencing, airworthiness, operations, and accident and incidents investigation.
The audit methodology requires states to respond to 1,031 protocol questions. As with any audit, when responding to protocol questions, states must produce evidence that demonstrates that what is contained in regulations and technical guidelines is indeed implemented.
Before the audit, South Africa was at position 41 globally in relation to ICAO’s Effective Implementation and at position two in Africa.
Results
I am proud to announce that South Africa’s ICAO audit results have risen from 83,83% to 86,71%. This is an increase of 3.43 in the level of Effective Implementation of ICAO’s Critical Elements with 86,71% significantly higher than the world average of 60%.
This puts South Africa at position one in Africa, and 33 globally. What is important to take out of this exercise is that this new ICAO auditing methodology is very comprehensive. Most countries that get subjected to this new method either maintain or drop their rating levels. On the contrary South Africa has managed to improve on its previous rating.
The ICAO audit team did not raise any Significant Safety Concern against South Africa. On the contrary, the auditors were full of praises for South Africa’s handling of civil aviation matters.
Initial results also show that South Africa’s sterling performance resulted in 100% performance in two key audit areas of legislation and organisation as well 100% in the sub-field of aviation medicine.
The ICAO audit team pointed out several areas, such as the airworthiness, legislation, and accident investigations, as South Africa’s best practice and intend sharing these with the rest of the world.
I wish to point out that this preliminary result does not come as a surprise because a closer look at aircraft accident statistics indicate that things have been improving lately, particularly in the last four years. The number of accidents has been declining since the 2013/14 financial year, when 144 accidents were reported.
Four years later, the number has dropped by a massive 50%, to 72 aircraft accidents during the 2016/17 financial year.
Most remarkably, during the 2016/17 financial year, South Africa managed to retain its impeccable zero fatality rate in relation to scheduled commercial operations or airlines.
Not the first, nor the last
This audit is not the first nor the last. There will be many more in the future.
Upon receiving the final report – hopefully within the next 45 days, we will study it carefully and put emphasis on areas that may require improvement, and continue to excel in areas where we came out the best.
I wish to thank the department of transport together with the South African Civil Aviation Authority as well as the South African Audit Task Team that comprised of all relevant entities and agencies such as the South African Weather Services, the Air Traffic and Navigation Services, and the South Africa Search and Rescue for ensuring that South Africa passes the audit.
The same gratitude goes to the entire aviation industry, particularly major license-holders such as SA Airlink, Solenta Aviation, Denel Aerostructures as well as the Air Traffic and Navigation Services which were audited and provided full cooperation. This is the type of collaboration that will see us growing abundantly.
You truly made us proud. Continue to fly the South African flag high."
