The Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday approved the completion of Kaduna terminal building with increased budgetary cost from N500 million to N1.1 billion due to inflation, Minister of State for Aviation, Mr. Hadi Sirika, said yesterday.
The minister told State House correspondents at the end of the council meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari that the contractor has agreed to complete the terminal building within six months.
“During the rehabilitation of the terminal building a contractor noticed some structural damages to the building itself and then increased the scope of what to be done to put it to use ad that necessitated the variation of contract sum.
“The cost of variation is in excess of 15 percent, it had to go to the then President Goodluck Jonathan for anticipatory approval, that was approved and they went to Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP).
“So, we brought it to council today to ratify and of course taking into cognisance the exchange rate and inflation that has increased the cost of completion of the terminal building from N500 million plus in 2011 to N1.1billion plus today. This is just for the terminal buildings and not the runway,” he said.
The minister also explained government’s decision to close Abuja airport for six weeks, saying that airport’s runway is in danger of collapsing having exceeded its life span by 14 years.
He said the runway was designed for only 20 years to cater for not more than 100,000 passengers per annum, but it is currently currently doing over five million passengers per annum, adding that the runway is now in its 34th year after construction.
Speaking on the possibility of closing the Abuja airport and the construction of Kaduna terminal building at the same time without crisis in the aviation sector, the minister assured that the Kaduna airport has an elaborate terminal robust enough to take passengers for the next six weeks.
“It will not hinder it, it will not stop them also from working. It may also be a bonus if the contractor is able to run through and finish the project before March but whether it finishes or not it will not affect the operations because there are enough buildings to carryout the operations of the airport,” he said.
On whether the VIPs would be excepted from the closure of the Abuja airport, the minister said: “The airport will be totally closed for six weeks, the construction and rehabilitation works is for six months. Within that six months there is a window of six weeks that the airport will be closed.
“It is important we inform you guys that whether we shut down now or not, the runway is on its way to shutting down itself. We are all witnesses to how Port Harcourt runway shut itself. The Port Harcourt runway was folding like mat, it was caving like deep gully erosion and Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) was busy patching until one night it caved in and Air France landed, it destroyed their landing gear and bursted their tyres and after the repairs the airport was closed for two and a half years.”
