The Minister of Aviation Joseph Kofi Adda has said the Ghana Airport Company Limited (GACL) is financially constrained due to the servicing of loans secured for the construction of the state-of-the-art Terminal 3 (T3) at Kotoka International Airport (KIA).
The $250 million T3 projects partly funded by the African Development Bank was to ease pressure on the existing two terminals expected to handle up to five million passengers a year, with expansion potential of up to 6.5 million passengers.
Addressing the press on Thursday, July 9, 2020, in Accra, Aviation Minister Joseph Kofi Adda lamented on the Terminal 3 heavy debt which has crippled the airport company.
“The Ghana Airport Company Limited is currently distressed due to heavy debts. The Ghana Airport Company is choked with this T3 debt which it has been paying for a long time. Because of that, they have not been able to make any extra revenues to undertake other projects.”
“The government has been renegotiating it till it is good enough and so we continue to look for ways to bring it down even lower,” he further explained.
On the back of the airport’s rising debt, Kofi Adda raised concerns on the need for strategic partnerships to better the aviation sector.
“The terminal 3(T3) building and the way it was financed is really giving the airport a headache. The total debt was about $400million but they have been able to part of it and it is down to about $300million and I think they are negotiating to see how they can bring that debt down further. They have done quite well in servicing that debt consistently”
According to the sector Minister, government is committed to engaging all stakeholders and partners to come up with ideas for the improvement of the situation and make Ghana the aviation hub of the sub-region.
“It has been 30 years since Ghana refurbished its runway and it would cost some US$39 million to embark on such an initiative and the Ghana Airport Company does not have that money to do that. With this debt, we cannot even do that. If this company comes, is it something we can push them to do? We are not sure, so we need to negotiate. These are part of the reasons why we need a partnership,” Kofi Adda said.
—GhanaWeb
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