By Amoako Kwame
The Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet) says the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) owes it more than GH¢50 million in outstanding statutory payments, creating financial difficulties for the agency and affecting its ability to sustain key operations.
Under the amended Ghana Meteorological Agency Act, 2019 (Act 1002), the GCAA is required to remit 10% of en-route, overflight and landing fees to GMet, while the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) is mandated to pay 5% of airport passenger taxes to the agency.
GMet said an agreement was reached in March 2026 for the GCAA to settle the outstanding arrears following the amendment of the law. However, the agency says the payments have yet to be fully honoured.
Speaking to Citi News on Tuesday, August 18, GMet Director-General Dr Eric Asuman said one of the agency’s major challenges was its inability to access the GCAA’s flight database to independently verify the fees on which its statutory entitlement is calculated.
According to him, repeated efforts by GMet to gain access to the relevant flight data have not yielded results, making it difficult for the agency to independently determine the amounts due to it.
Dr Asuman explained that without access to the database, GMet could not effectively monitor flight movements or establish whether the statutory payments made by the GCAA accurately reflected the fees collected.
He described the matter as a longstanding dispute between the two institutions and called for a mechanism that would allow GMet to independently verify the data used to calculate its statutory share.
He noted that GACL began paying its statutory contribution to GMet in 2023 after working with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to facilitate the direct transfer of the agency’s share.
According to Dr Asuman, however, IATA also required an authorisation letter from the GCAA to facilitate the direct transfer of GMet’s share of aviation-related fees collected by the authority.
He said the letter had still not been provided, preventing GMet from receiving the 10% share of landing and en-route fees prescribed by law.
Dr Asuman said the issue had persisted despite interventions, including efforts by Parliament’s Select Committee, stressing that the GCAA was legally required to remit the funds to GMet.
He warned that the outstanding payments were placing additional financial pressure on GMet at a time when the agency needed increased resources to strengthen weather forecasting, aviation meteorology and other services critical to national development.
He called for urgent steps to resolve the dispute and establish a transparent system through which GMet could independently access and verify the aviation data used to determine its statutory entitlement.
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