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ATCL can now fly to 13 Sadc member countries

Dar es Salaam. The government has signed agreements that will see the state-owned Air Tanzania Company Limited (ATCL) and other airlines in the country flying to 13 destinations within the Southern African Development Community (Sadc), a cabinet minister revealed yesterday.

Works, Transport and Communications minister Isaac Kamwelwe said in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the national carrier has been cleared to fly to all but two countries in Sadc. He was speaking at a media briefing on the planned meeting of Sadc ministers in-charge of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), Information, Transport and Metrological services.

The meeting - to be held in Dar es Salaam on September 20 this year - will bring together participants from all the 16 Sadc member states.

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The countries that have so far signed agreements with Tanzania include: South Africa, Mauritius, Angola, Eswatini, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Seychelles, Mozambique and the Comoros.

“The aim is to enable airlines - including ATCL and those from other Sadc member countries - to provide aviation services inside and outside the region without obstacles. This will improve transportation of people and cargoes within the region and beyond,” he said.

ATCL is allowed to fly to Sadc countries according to procedures agreed by the Sadc Aviation Safety Organization (Saso).

Currently, ATCL flies to South Africa, Comoro, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Also, the government, he said, has purchased radars in an effort to improve aviation transport services in the country.

“There is a radar for meteorological services which must provide accurate information to service providers in the areas of aviation, agriculture, construction and media,” he said.

Tanzania experts have also innovated software that would be used in Sadc countries to improve efficiency - including the Tanzania Meteorological Agency-Digital Meteorological Observatory (TMA-DMO).

According to him, the TMA-DMO software enhances meteorological data communications.

The other system that has been innovated is the Meteorological Aviation Information System (MAIS) which aims at improving the provision of meteorological services in the aviation sector. According to Mr Kamwelwe, the ministers’ meeting will be preceded by one for permanent secretaries of the respective dockets from today to Wednesday.

That will be followed by what has been termed as ‘Sadc High Level Ministerial Dialogue on Innovative and Emerging High Capacity Broadband Access Technologies.’

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