Rwanda is planning to build a new airport expected to be complete by 2015, Vincent Karega, Rwanda’s Infrastructure Minister told the press last week. The New Bugesera International Airport to be located south of Kigali City, in the sparsely populated Nyamata district, in Eastern Rwanda, may cost US$700 million, according to the minister.
The multi million dollar project will be developed in phases. The first phase will cost about $450m and the second phase $250m. Phase one will start with a terminal and a bigger runway, and facilities for fueling and security among many basic requirements of a world class airport. Phase two will be building the second runway.
The funding of the project will be through a Public-Private Partnerships (PPP’s) model. The government has already recruited PricewaterhouseCoopers as transaction advisor to mobilize the private capital to invest in the project. PricewaterhouseCoopers are still working out on the material and content. They will soon organize a roundtable on the Bugesera Airport. They are quite optimistic about attracting many investors and good contractors.
With the technical and feasibility studies already completed, architectural design done, the minister is optimistic the airport should be ready by 2015. A British engineering company, TPS Consult, is working on a detailed design.
“Construction only takes two years and the site is not a densely inhabited area so there will not be much time spent on compensating and relocating people. As soon as money is available work will start immediately,” the minister assured. He said $8.5m has already been spent on the feasibility studies, architectural designs and review by International Civil Aviation Organization.
“As always, Government has taken the initiative to foot this bill in its totality so as to kick start the project,” Karega said. The construction comes at a time operators at Kigali International Airport are complaining about facilities that cannot handle the growing number of passengers and operators.
In 2004, the airport served 135,189 passengers. In 2008, the airport served about 300 000 passengers but the number of passengers is projected to rise. Signs are already showing that during peak days the airport is overwhelmed both by the traffic and planes that land and take off.
“During peak days, when there is in-coming traffic from SN Bruselles, Kenya Airways and Ethiopian Airlines at once and it becomes almost impossible to handle the traffic, to find parking of the aircrafts and refueling of airplanes,” Karega says.
