Govt Finally To Rehabilitate Airports

By Justice Mponda

Government has unveiled new plans to rehabilitate all airports and purchase new aircrafts in order to improve air transport in the country.

Minister of Transport and Public Infrastructure Khumbo Kachale disclosed this when he was briefing the media after inspecting rehabilitation works at Kamuzu International Airport (KIA) in Lilongwe.

Kachale observed that the country’s air transport was in bad shape and that government was committed to improve it so as to match other air industry from across the globe.

“Airports are the face of every country, so it is embarrassing to be keeping them in bad shape. Therefore after realizing the significant role airports play in this country, we thought it wise to embark on rehabilitation of all airports as well as purchasing new aircraft. For example KIA constructed in between 1977 and 1981, since then no major rehabilitation work has taken place and you can’t expect such an infrastructure to be in enviable state,” he said.

Kachale could however not be drawn to disclose on how many aircraft government intends to purchase and how much money has been allocated to the initiative.

Air Malawi has been the most underperforming statutory firm for the past years, a thing which has sparked a blame game between the former ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

And during the last sitting of parliament, while announcing major reforms in most of the parastatals, Finance Minister Ken Kandodo Banda talked much about Air Malawi and Electricity supply Commission of Malawi (Escom), which are  the troubled entities in the country.

But the minister was quick to mention that the silence on the two bodies did not mean that they were abandoned. “Government is already making a number of internal reforms and restructuring processes within these entities aimed at improving their productivity and efficiency levels,” Kandodo was quoted as saying in the media.

In the recent appointment of boards of parastatals, President Bingu wa Mutharika appointed politician Davis Katsonga to be heading Airport Malawi.

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Posted by malawi voice on Jul 27 2010. Filed under LATEST NEWS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry