Due to the Ghana Revenue Authority's (GRA) insistence that full taxes be paid for the two pieces of non-flyable equipment, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology's (KNUST) aerospace engineering department may not be able to use two helicopters donated by PHI Century Ltd for practical lessons to improve their capacity to train young aeronautical engineers.

To support the need for transportation to offshore drilling rigs and production platforms offshore at Cape Three Points in the Western Region, PHI Century Limited, a joint venture between PHI Aviation and Century Aviation Company Limited, initially imported the two old helicopters into the nation.

Since they will be exported after completing their allotted tasks, they were classified as tax-free at the time of importation.

PHI Century offered to donate the two aging pieces of equipment to KNUST in order to train aerospace engineers rather than moving them back to the US and giving them to an aviation school there for practical use.

However, in order to obtain the two helicopters for academic usage and for the benefit of KNUST's new School of Aeronautical Studies, the Ghana Revenue Authority wants KNUST to pay thousands of cedis in taxes.

“These are equipment that the aerospace engineering unit of KNUST lack and would greatly help them, instead of going to gift them to a school in the US,” an aviation expert with knowledge of the issue confirmed this to AviationGhana.com