The Muhammadu Buhari-led administration says it has to spend N1.1 billion on Kaduna Airport terminal, as against N500 million originally planned by the Goodluck Jonathan administration.
The federal government said the contract was inflated by over 100 percent, due to the rising inflation and exchange rate challenges in the country.
Hadi Sirika, minister of aviation, disclosed this in Abuja on Wednesday, and said the increase was necessary to ensure safety at the airport.
“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,” Sirika said.
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“The cost of variation is in excess of 15 percent, it had to go to the then President Goodluck Jonathan for approval anticipation, 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”.
Sirika said the Kaduna Airport has what it takes to handle the closure of Abuja Airport, adding that there would not be preference for anyone during the six-week closure.
“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.
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“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 until recently.
“Lest we forget, if at the time people were taking the appropriate action, probably they would have closed the airport for six weeks rather than for two and half years. So it is extremely important that when things are bordering on safety we don’t joke about human lives. The life of one elite is not more than the life of one down trodden person, they are all Nigerians.
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“It is with great pains that we will have to resort to diverting traffic. If it was a case of where a section of the runway is bad we wouldn’t have to close the airport, we would be working at night, close at 10pm and reopen at 6am, but the entire structure of the runway has failed.”
He said the runway was designed to cater for not more than 100,000 people per annum, for 20 years, but has been catering for over five million persons per annum and has been there for 34 years.
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