1st in History…
President Bio Commission Brand New Airport
By Mohamed Konneh
Sierra Leone’s President, Julius Maada Bio on Friday 3rd February 2023 commissioned a brand new airport in Lungi, the country’s gateway to the global world. The new airport commission is named-The Freetown International Airport located about some ten minutes’ drive from the old airport.
Commissioning the airport, President Julius Maada Bio commended the SUMMA Group of companies for delivering on their commitment.
‘They promised two years; in spite of COVID and the global economic headwinds and downturns, they worked hard; today, two years on, they have delivered. You have proved yet again that “talk and do” is not mere talk. It is a mindset; it is an attitude. It is about work ethic -- working hard and making good on promises, and delivering outstanding outcomes. Thank you for demonstrating the “talk and do” attitude, President Bio narrated.’
President Bio said Sierra Leone is a credible and conducive destination for foreign direct investments and that the private sector in Turkey can be assured that Sierra Leone is open to more Turkish investments.
The President thanked the Office of Presidential Infrastructure Initiatives; the Ministers of Transportation; the entire leadership, and all stakeholders in the transportation sector including the Sierra Leone Airport Authority and the Sierra Leone Civil Aviation Authority, for their dedication in ensuring that this day is happening.
He said the International airport at Lungi that was inherited was a cramped-up, dome-like structure with unmaintained, barely-functional, and very uncomfortable facilities.
‘The experiences at the arrival and departure concourses, the luggage carousel, the airport foyers and exits were a far cry from what passengers would ever experience at modern airports all over the world. Passenger volumes hovered around a low 200,000. Runways, taxi ways, air aprons were in good condition but needed repairs. We were at 20% compliance with ICAO requirements.
Our airport levies were about the highest in the sub-region. That was the legacy of the APC Government, he said.’
He said government have since carried out repairs and increased the safety and compliance rating of the airport. A new fire engine was procured, navigational aids, runway lighting, and invested in emergency services.
Safety and other international ratings of the airport improved dramatically over the last four and half years.
President Bio noted that the New Direction manifesto had established a clear view for working within a regional vision to develop “a sound and seamless regional air transport system that is safe, reliable, efficient, affordable, well connected within West Africa and integrated within the global network.
‘If our goal was to enhance our global civil aviation safety, improve Sierra Leone’s air links within the global transportation network, improve passenger safety and comfort, and create an economically viable and ultramodern international airport that would become an
economic growth node, then we had to take a new direction, he said.’
President Bio lamented on the Mamamah project which he said was a debt of $350 million USD. That was debt with interest.
He added that International financial institutions and partners had warned against such huge debt and even before they dug a single hole at Mamamah, the APC had already spent millions of dollars on questionable land acquisition.
This he said was going to involve forcible destroying a village and moving people; an environmental studies contract was awarded to one company that even the EPA did not have much input on the studies; only tentative meteorological studies were done. An international airport is not built on the basis of tentative meteorological studies; They were going to demolish an entire village and all its 23 houses. No firm plans were made for their suitable relocation and for over five years, nothing was done.
‘Roadworks and civil works to the site should have started to site – that was never even started. They started all these questionable negotiations way back in 2013. Five years later, they were still negotiating how many million dollars in debt they would leave Sierra Leone in. Mamamah is about 60Km from Freetown whilst lungi is about 15Km from Freetown by sea. The airspace of Lungi International airport and the new
Mamamah airport is overlapping, the distance between the two airports is 42Km – that means that the airport would not have met the requirement of 20Km procedure control – therefore there was going to be an airspace conflict – so Lungi had to be shut down, President Bio narrated.’
He said the international airport was going to move from Lungi. Lungi would have become a ghost town with great job losses for young people. There was no provision for radar control at Mamamah. Mamamah airport was going to be smaller. There would have been no jetways so people still had to walk or be bussed across the apron to the terminal building. Phase I work for Mamamah Airport was going to be completed in 4 years and that was not going to even include a VIP or Presidential terminal.
The President said electricity was to be supplied by dirty diesel generators costing millions of dollars and the grid expansion to the proposed airport
was not even funded.
‘I know it is political season but let us compare Mamamah with what we have done here. First, we are not moving the airport from Lungi to Mamamah.
We did not move the airport to the southeast as some bad politicians would let you believe. We believe that Lungi and Port Loko deserve to still be the international gateway of Sierra Leone. We do not believe that Sierra Leone should be indebted with hundreds of millions of dollars of debt with interest just to build an airport, he said.’
This airport according to the President is bigger and more modern and it has been built with zero cents in debt. It is Build Operate and Transfer. The Turkish people have used their own money to build this brand new terminal and new facilities. We owe them nothing. After operating the airport for some years, they will give us the airport for free.
President noted that even in the midst of COVID-19, Sierra Leone is the only country in the entire West Africa that one company invested such a huge sum of money in an infrastructural project and complete it in record time.
He said the funding model – BOT – is one way in which even countries like the UK, US, Germany, France etc build large infrastructural projects.
And that since 1967 when the Lungi international airport runway was expanded, this is the first time in the history of this country that a completely new international airport terminal has been constructed.
No Government has ever done such massive infrastructural development in this sector.
