$500m airport terminal buildings ready by Dec 2014

If everything goes as planned, Chinese Engineering and Construction Company is expected to complete construction work on the four new international airport terminals it is bankrolling in Nigeria by the end of December 2014.

Nigeria had secured a $500 million loan from the Chinese Exim Bank for the construction of the four new international airport terminals cited in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt and Kano.
Construction work on the projects was ceded to the Chinese Engineering and Construction Company (CECC) and the job so far has advanced by about 40 per cent.
Nigeria’s Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, who toured the cites recently expressed delight at the pace of the work by the contractors but insisted that more Nigerian employees be hired to create job and aid skills and technology transfer to indigenous workers.
“The process has been accelerated because we started on a very rough note,” Oduah told journalists in Port Harcourt.

“People should try to be appreciative of what this government has done in the aviation industry. We have been able to showcase that aviation is pivotal to the economic growth of Nigeria. By December all the construction would have been completed,” Oduah added.
The Federal Government, through the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), is to hold a 20 per cent equity in the airport city projects, which would be cited in Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt. The remaining 80 per cent stake is to be held by private sector investors.
Oduah said the various projects going on in the industry became necessary so that the country can take full advantage of its potentials in the aviation sector, create jobs as well as increase revenue generation to the government.
“But what I think is more important is the new jobs they are adding while the construction is ongoing and the spiral effect this will have on the local communities. In fact, so many projects are ongoing in Port Harcourt – the dry cargo terminal, the perishable goods terminal, the VIP and general aviation terminals and the international terminals.
“So I am usually baffled when someone says nothing is happening in Port Harcourt because a whole lot is happening in Port Harcourt. You cannot say nothing is happening in Port Harcourt because we are going to create about 30,000 jobs while constructing these infrastructure alone,” she added.
According to her, the government would be generating an estimated N100 billion annually from the projects, while 10 million jobs would be created for Nigerian youths in the first two years of the projects coming on stream.

http://sunnewsonline.com/new/business/500m-airport-terminal-buildings-ready-dec-2014/

By LOUIS IBA