Uganda’s Aviation body struggling to retain aeronautical engineers

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT  | The Civil Aviation Authority is struggling to retain its trained aeronautical engineers, as many are swayed by better offers elsewhere, CAA Director General David Mpango Kakuba has said.

According to a report by the Civil Aviation Authority, several of the aeronautical systems engineers are paid between 23 million and 30 million Shillings, a much lower wage, compared to their counterparts in the Civil Aviation Safety and Security Oversight Agency, International Civil Aviation Organization and the United Nations.

The average wage for aeronautical engineers is 53 million shillings in some of the agencies, more than double the amount paid to an aeronautical engineer in Uganda. Kakuba says that as a result, more than 48 per cent of the aeronautical engineers recruited and trained at the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority leave at the earliest possible opportunity, in search for greener pastures.

Currently, the Civil Aviation Authority is struggling to get 46 engineers to be trained in aeronautical engineering in order to solve the current shortage in the number of Aeronautical Information Systems officers, the Air Navigation engineers, electronic systems engineers, transportation Systems, aerodynamics and fluid dynamics engineers, and structural design engineers, among others.

Kakuba also decried the lack of an African University training students in such aeronautical fields.

Thorsten Wehe, the President of the International Association of Aeronautical Engineers says that the the association is pushing to have the International Civil Aviation Organization harmonize wages of all aeronautical engineers based on skills and expertise.

Last month, the President of the Aeronautical Information Systems officers at the Civil Aviation Authority Thomas Otim decried an acute shortage of aeronautical Information systems officers saying that the available team is aged and can no longer adapt to technological advancement.

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