The commissioner, Accident investigating bureau in Nigeria, Akin Olateru says human capital development is critical and a basic area that AIB Nigeria would be very useful to Ghana, adding that Nigeria’s safety lab would be used by the neighbouring nation till they could fund theirs.
Olateru made the assertion while receiving Ghana’s Commissioner AIB, Kwesi Prempeh who led a four man delegation to Nigeria to seek technical assistance.
According to him,, “what we have today is a fact-finding mission. AIB-Ghana is new and they want to learn from Nigeria. They want to learn from our mistakes and from the things we’ve done very well.
“They came to inspect our facilities and what we’ve done so far is to take them round to also inspect our equipment. They’ve met with a lot of our investigators and almost all the heads of units.”
Olateru added, “They’ve gone through some of our documentations as well, such as our regulation and others. This is an attestation to the fact that we are doing something right in AIB-Nigeria.
“This is not the first nation to call on us for assistance. We’ve had such calls from the Republic of Benin, which has ceded all their investigation to AIB-Nigeria.”
Also Speaking , Ghana’s AIB commissioner ,Kwesi Prempeh said they were here to acquire knowledge on key policies, regulations, procedures and the structure of the Nigerian bureau.
“Also, it is to tour most of your (AIB-Nigeria) facilities. We have the opportunity to visit your safety laboratory, training centre, command and control centre and the NCAA (Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority),” Prempeh stated while speaking in Abuja.
According to him, “Apart from that, we are looking for how to finance our bureau because it is a new establishment. We are also requesting for more in the areas of technical assistance, institutional development, equipment and logistics.”
He said the Ghanaian government would bring some members of its workforce in the bureau to Nigeria for accident investigation trainings.
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