PUTRAJAYA, Nov. 12 -- The Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM) is looking at overhauling its industry service charges to meet its increasing budgetary needs and remove its reliance on the Finance Ministry for funds.

Board member Datuk Razali Mahfar told a press conference that some of the current problems they faced, which had contributed to US Federal Aviation Authority's demotion of CAAM to Category Two was due to their lack of qualified technical personnel, talents and technology.

"Our immediate task is to decouple from the government pay scheme. To do that, we must be self-sufficient. If we are self-sufficient, we can move to the next stage - which is an independent statutory body.

"To achieve that, we must remove the subsid...