Joseph Kofi Adda, the Minister of Aviation has confirmed that the ministry is pursuing roughly 40 million dollars to refurbish the runway at the Kotoka International Airport.
The move according to the minister is to enhance the facility and also ratify safety at the airport as it has not undergone any major restoration in over three decades.
In an interview, he did not clearly spell out precisely where or how his outfit will cough up funds for the refurbishment. He however indicated that, a strategic partner who is willing to aid with the works at the Airport could very well qualify to help in carrying out the objective due to the urgent nature of safety at the airport.
He said, “the runway has to be redone. It has been thirty years and nothing has been done. They need to redo it. The last time I heard they did some work to get the tar out of it, there was a huge stuck of that. It needs to be redone. Now we need about forty million dollars to do the work. With this debt now, they cannot even do that. Is it something we can push the new company to do? We are not sure. There are a whole lot of options we can look at”.
Joseph Kofi Adda
The comment from the aviation minister is well placed under the context of the much bantered controversy and agitation with staff over whether the airport will be privatized or not as a proposed partnership with a Turkish firm for expansion works at the Airport is underway.
Background
On July 6, 2020, the Ministry of Aviation dismissed reports alleging that the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) has been sold to a foreign company and urged the public to disregard it.
In a statement signed by the sector minister, Joseph Kofi Adda, the Ministry said, it was however, deliberating for consideration with its stakeholders, including the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL), a proposed Strategic Partnership Arrangement between GACL and TAV-SUMMA Consortium to improve service delivery and expansion of infrastructure at the KIA.
This, he said, was to help achieve the government’s vision of making Ghana the Aviation Hub within the West African Sub-Region.
According to the statement, an Executive Approval was granted by H.E. the President for the Ministry to facilitate the engagement of the Strategic Partners.
“To this end, we hereby state categorically that neither the Ministry nor the GACL has yet formally started any process of engagement on the subject matter with any stakeholder or partner”.
“We, therefore, wish to note that the false information on the sale of the Kotoka International Airport being circulated in the media/social media is the work of mischievous and malicious elements to pitch the staff of GACL and the general public against Government to achieve their diabolical agenda and erode the successes chalked in the Aviation Sector for the last three years”.
It said the Ministry would continue to constructively engage its agencies and stakeholders in matters “affecting the Aviation Sector and Industry with the ultimate aim of achieving the President’s vision of making Ghana an aviation Hub in the sub-region”.
The Minister of Aviation, Joseph Kofi Adda, also in a statement denied the allegation and assured the general public that his outfit and its stakeholders were considering a proposed Strategic Partnership arrangement to improve service delivery and expansion of infrastructure at KIA to achieve government’s vision of making Ghana the Aviation Hub within the West African Sub-Region.
