Malé, Maldives – The Performance Audit on the Effectiveness of Civil Aviation Authority in Regulating Asian Academy of Aeronautics (AAA) has revealed multiple areas of negligence by the Maldives Civil Aviation Authority.
As per the request of Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation on 25 January 2020, the Auditor General’s Office conducted the performance audit of the Civil Aviation Authority from 2018 to 2020. This audit shows multiple areas of negligence from the Civil Aviation Authority including,
- Lack of oversight on the capacity of the flight school (AAA).
- Absense of any policy or framework to penalize the flight school in instances where the school breaches regulations.
- Lack of corrective measure taken against flight school, although the Civil Aviation Authority’s audit of AAA showed violations such as absence of student records by the school.
- Civil Aviation Authority’s audit itself was not conducted properly.
In addition to the Civil Aviation Authority, the Auditor General’s Office highlights other authorities that were complicit in the AAA crisis. The report notes that,
- The laws and legislature failed to evolve with the developments in aviation.
- Higher Education Ministry failed to monitor the flight school situation closely.
- Failure to pinpoint the exact party responsible for the students of the flight school due to the lack of laws, regulations and policies.
The Auditor General proposed various areas for improvement for the Ministry of Higher Education including,
- Establishing a system to register and monitor institutes for tertiary level education
- Proactively monitoring said institutes to protect the rights of students.
- Conveying any changes to the institute or management to the ministry.
- Creating performance indicators; regulating and monitoring tertiary education institutes using these indicators.
- Establishing a refund system in instances where the tertiary education institues fail to deliver.
- Schedule bi annual meetings with other relevant authorities involved with tertiary education.
The Audit Report states that despite multiple attempts and complaints by students, the Civil Aviation Authority, the Higher Education Ministry also failed to provide the protection the AAA students needed on time.
