FACELIFT FOR AIR FORCE STATION (PAGE 29)

THE Tamale Air Force Station is currently undergoing a facelift to enable it to meet its security challenges this year and in the future.
A number of facilities are being provided to enhance the output of the officers and men at the station.
They include a four-storey building comprising 16 apartments, offices and residential accommodation for the staff of the station.
A sports complex to ensure the physical fitness of the airmen and women is also being provided. The projects are expected to be completed by the end of the year.
The station’s operational areas cover the three northern regions and hence it is strategically located along the Tamale-Bolgatanga road.
Over the years, staff of the station had been called to assist in the maintenance of security particularly in the Yendi and Bawku conflict-prone areas, and which the station handled professionally.
It was, therefore, heart-warming that during the recent visit of the Chief of Air Staff, Air Vice Marshal Julius Otchere Boateng, he indicated that there had been a marked improvement in the operational readiness of the station over the years.
Indeed, when this reporter visited the station during its 2008 Administrative Inspection Parade, the smart turnout of the airmen and women held at its Hangar in spite of a downpour was enough to tell anybody that the staff were ever ready to perform their professional duties.
The Chief of Air Staff commended the officers and men of the station for their self-help spirit, which, he noted, was rare among all the stations in the country.
Significantly, the Air Force Station has a strategic importance in the national security framework, hence the need to re-equip it to enhance its performance particularly during the December polls.
The Tamale Air Force Station was initially known as the African High Command Air Force Base. Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, established it. The project, however, came to a halt after Dr Nkrumah was overthrown in 1966 until the Air Force took control of the station in 1974 to protect its facilities.