SIC yet to compensate Airlink victims

Victims of last year’s Airlink crash have questioned the genuiness of sections of Ghana’s insurance firms due to the cumbersome procedures involved in compensating victims of disasters even after claims have been negotiated and concluded.

The victims and their relatives who are still facing perhaps their darkest hour are still lamenting their predicament, 15 months after the gory incident. It would be recalled that 44 passengers were on board an Airlink plane on June 5 last year when disaster struck.

The plane crashed, killing 7 people including a Swiss, an American and a Nigerian on board while all others were injured, reports made available to this paper revealed that 30 of the 44 passengers of the disaster have filed for claims with the State Insurance Company (SIC).

In his response to questions on Thursday, September 6, 2001, Mr. Dennis A. Guda, Chief Manager, Marine and Aviation Department of SIC stated that the primary responsibility of “insurance is to make claims and compensation.”

It is then worrisome why 15 months after a disaster, victims still hope against all hopes to be compensated after having made claims. Reacting to this, Mr. A. Guda speaking for the SIC says, “we don’t think it’s taking too long a time.”

Concerned citizens are however calling on the government to set up a probe into the operations of Airlink.

The Independent is privy to information to the effect that Airlink was not licensed to carry commercial passengers under Civil Aviation Athority and therefore limited only to carrying military personnel.

The information also revealed that competent and commercial carriers are licensed under Civil Aviation regulations and their tickets are thereby covered by the Warsaw Convention. This according to our source, sheds more light on the need for a probe into this incident.

The victims, who have lived in day-time nightmares for 15 months since the incident happened are amazed at such cumbersome procedures using lawyers in making claims from the SIC as a result of such a verifiable accident.

They wonder why such “unnecessary protocols” were not necessary while taking the insurance policy but rather at their hour of agony. The Independent’s investigations continue.