Select c’ttee discusses expansion of Kumasi airport
The Parliamentary Select Committee on Roads and Transports will begin the processes of fast-tracking the implementation of the master plan for further expansion of the Kumasi International Airport to an appreciable level.
The master plan, developed by the Ghana Airport Company Limited, is to address a holistic infrastructural development for the airport which gained international status in 2003.
The plan captured land beyond the fenced area of the airport to further expand the runway and its allied infrastructure to meet future challenges.
What is currently being looked at is the cost aspect of the proposed project, which would involve resettlement packages for the settlers on the land.
A parliamentary team, led by the Chairman of the Committee, Michael Coffie Boapong, MP for Bia Constituency in the Western Region, which visited the airport last Saturday to familiarise itself with the improved facility, promised to capture the project in its report expected to be presented to the house on Wednesday (tomorrow).
The Manager of the Airport, Mr Kwadwo Abrefa Sarkodie, briefed the MPs on what constituted an international airport, which include having all the security features in place such as CEPS, Immigration, and Narcotics Unit offices and spaces and not necessarily the size of the airport.
The first phase of the airport expansion works,which cost $27.6 million, included expanding the runway to 1,951m, improving the pavements, taxi way, the apron, cross slops and correcting the undulating nature of the existing surface.
The Project Manager, Mr Emmanuel Mends Fynn, and the Electrical Manager, Mr Apeadu Mensah, both took turns to explain the detail work on the runway and the lighting system which makes the airport very safe and one of the best on the continent.
The runway is expected to be further expanded to 2,320m once the stop-ways are developed in the second phase of the project, which the select committee promised would begin before the end of the year.
The committee praised the managers of the facility. They singled out the contractors for commendation, whom the chairman described as very professional.
Following a question by MP for Ablekuma Central, Theophilus Tetteh Chaie, a committee member, on the impact of the improved facility on business, the airport manager described it as ‘fantastic.’
Business was said to be brisk as more passengers flew in the night but the MPs wanted aircraft owners to reduce airfare.
