BUSEGERA AIRPORT – COMPENSATION BEFORE CONSTRUCTION
(17th July 2014)
Rwanda’s new airport – Impressions courtesy of RCAA)
It will be compensation first before affected residents, said to be numbering over 6.000 households, will start to move out of a 25 square kilometre area set aside for the construction of the new international airport at Busegera. About a third of the affected properties have reportedly been taken over by government, though neither the exact number nor the fact if those affected were actually paid could be ascertained.
The new airport has been under planning for several years and was at one stage due to be opened in 2017, a date no longer thought attainable, considering the construction delays seen at other projects like the national convention centre in the capital Kigali.
Some sources in Rwanda suggested that the long delay in evaluating the affected properties to the point of actual compensation took too long, not taking into account that the land values across the country have risen sharply over the past several years, arguably leaving residents who have to leave their little farms, short of cash to acquire a similar piece of land elsewhere.
Some of the delays were said to be a result of the review of the scope of the project when the cost estimates came in and the figures appeared to be too high, leading to fresh design inputs in order to keep the cost of the new airport within a manageable range.
The new airport, when ready, will be home to fast growing national airline RwandAir, which by the time the new facility will be launched should have at least two long range B787 Dreamliners on the fleet, besides the added number of regional aircraft needed to run a proper hub and spoke operation. What is clear though is that until all the affected households have vacated the land needed to build the new airport not much in terms of construction can take place other than commence work on access roads and adding lanes on the main road from the site to Kigali.
Be sure to watch this space for upcoming announcements when construction will actually commence.
