In a report released last Friday, Amweelo said the number of accidents has risen from six last year to eight this year while the number of "incidents" increased from 107 to 134 over the same period.

Aircraft incidents are occurrences, other than an accidents, associated with the operation of the aircraft and which affects or could affect the safety of operation.

They may include power failures at airports, animals, people and vehicles moving on the runway without the authorisation of the air traffic control officer and aircraft technical problems of a significant nature.

He said if this trend was allowed to continue "it might adversely jeopardise tourism, trade and investment" in the country."

"By comparison with other modes of transport, aviation accidents are and remain the lowest in the Namibian history," Amweelo said.

He said Namibia was bound by its membership to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to comply with international safety and security standards and the goal was to enhance standards to the level of the Joint Aviation Authorities of Europe (JAA).

He said the Ministry of Works, Transport and Communication had done a lot to upgrade standards through training of staff and updating of regulations and looked forward to an increase in tourism.

It is estimated that next year some 1,8 billion people worldwide will travel by air.

Amweelo believes that, with an efficient civil aviation system, Namibia can tap into a share of this market through tourism and business travel.

Namibia is working closely with Southern African Development Community (SADC) member countries to bring the region in line with new technological developments in air navigation.

A considerable number of structures and work groups in Africa, and in SADC countries specifically, are implementing new projects and initiatives under the auspices of the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

Much of new air-navigation technology will be satellite-based within the next five years, according to the Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS) in South Africa.

One of the key projects is the VSAT satellite communications system implemented with SADC states on a bilateral basis.

The system links 13 of the 14 member countries of the SADC for purposes ofair traffic control.

No single system has ever achieved this.

The network carries up to 10 000 direct speech calls a month between airtraffic control centres in the SADC region.

According to ATNS this has the positive effect of enhancing safety.

The Namibian

-- Anonymous, December 18, 2000