Ebonyi State government on Tuesday, said it has approved over thirteen billion naira for the rehabilitation of Chuba Okadigbo International Airport runway, Onueke, Ezza South local government area of the state.
The Commissioner of Aviation and Transport Technology in the state, Mrs. Ngozi Obichukwu made this known while speaking to reporters at the airport shortly after the official handover of the runway site to the contractor.
Obichukwu said that the runway rehabilitation, which was awarded to Infrastructure Development Company (IDC), will take the maximum period of eight months for it’s completion.
She promised adequate security and protection of lives and properties of the contractors and their team.
She said: “The runway rehabilitation is awarded to IDC construction company and the contractor is here on ground to ensure that the runway is perfectly put in the right place. You can see, that since last two months ago, we have not been having flight landing here because the runway wasn’t in the right proper shape.
“The contractor has fulfilled the procurement requirements that we gave them, at the biding opening, assessment and evaluation. The IDC construction company has today meet up with our requirements on the runway design. They will start work next week and the job is expected to be completed in the six to eight months, so that the full flight operations will start.”
She explained that the state government has mobilized the contractor for immediate commencement of work at the runway site.
The Area Manager of IDC construction company, Engr. Youssef Zghib said that the concrete used in the Chuba Okadigbo’s airport runway, will be scraped half way to enable the asphalting to blend together.
“The only reason why the flight could not land here is because of the rigidity of the concrete and once the 150mm of combined asphalt is layed, there will be no other excuse for an airline not to land here,” he stated.
