The Ministry of Aviation says two out of the three major expansion projects at the Kotoka International Airport will be ready for public use by early next year.

This was made known during a tour of all the three projects.

The projects include the Air Navigation Services (ANS) facility, the new headquarters of the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) and the Northern Airport Apron which will accommodate more airplanes when completed.

The projects are currently at different stages of completion.

The first, the new Air Navigation Service, which is projected to be the 2nd largest in Africa, is currently about 80% complete.

According to the Minister for Aviation, Joseph Kofi Adda, work on this project will be completed by October.

“We visited the Air Navigation Services new building, and we saw the progress of work. We’ve gone quite far, about 82%. We’re hoping that we can finish this by October (2020) in terms of the major things that need to be done. Final touches will be completed and handed over possibly early next year (2021),” he said.

The ANS facility has an 800kvh standby generator to power the facility and a 247,000-litre primary water tank.

The second is the new headquarters for the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) which is almost 30% complete is part of government’s efforts at changing the aviation industry.

The $57 million Northern Apron project, which is also in its early stages when completed, will accommodate more aircraft. Project Director, Ing. Alex Aryeh said the project is about 30% complete.

“We’re enhancing the capacity and we’re putting in more parking lots but the topography of the area was such that we had to raise it from the existing level that is there and then bring it up because there are permissible slopes. It’s a lot of work. There were other difficult things that we had to do. We know that drainage is very important for an airport. So we are doing drains which will take care of all the excess runoff water, so we don’t have any situation of flooding.

Speaking to the media, Mr. Adda reiterated the government’s commitment to making Ghana an aviation hub within West Africa, and a destination of choice for travellers.

“We are on course in the President’s vision of making the airport an aviation hub in the West African sub-region, in the sense that we can accommodate many airports here. There is a lot of space in terms of taxiways and runways. All of these can take a lot more here and there won’t be any delay in turnaround,” he said.

“We had to extend the periphery wall further to claim some land that will be compacted and made ready for aircraft parking. This will provide an opportunity for more airlines to come here, and also create all kinds of services that will require more people to be engaged in terms of jobs that’ll be created,” he added.

Expansion works on the Kotoka International Airports began in 2016. This started with the terminal three which expanded the airport’s total passenger handling capacity by five million and significantly eased peak-hour congestion at the old terminal, Terminal 2.

Source: Citibusinessnews.com