The Enugu State Caucus in the House of Representatives has thrown its weight behind the federal government’s plan for the Akanu Ibiam International Airport Concession, describing it as a potential catalyst for the South East economy.

The caucus commended the federal government for the initiative and urged it to hasten the concession process to enable the people of the South East and the nation to benefit from it in earnest.

It equally called on the people of the region to support concession as the only way to guarantee sustainable investment to fully develop the airport into a truly international facility.

The caucus made its position known in a statement signed and issued on Monday by the caucus leader, Hon. Nnolim Nnaji, as well as Hon. Martins Oke, Hon. Dennis Agbo, Hon. Anayo Onwuegbu, Hon. Chimaobi Atu, Hon. Sunday Umeha, Hon. Paul Nnamchi, and Hon. Mark Obetta. These are the representatives of all the eight federal constituencies in Enugu State.

“Due to poor capital investment, the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, AIIA, Enugu, remains partially completed and indeed an international airport only in name over two decades since it was designated as such by the federal government. Critical components such as cargo terminal, runway, international terminal, among others, are either non-existent or requiring completion or upgrade.

“Businesses and the people of the South East especially have borne the brunt of these inadequacies, which manifest in the paucity of international flights and intermittent closure of the airport for repair of the runway, as recently witnessed.

“Therefore, we believe that the concessioning of the airport, as currently being processed by the federal government, is the only realistic approach to attracting adequate resources to build the requisite infrastructure and expand existing ones to place AIIA in the league of other international airports around the world,” the caucus said.

The statement explained that concession was not the same thing as privatisation or sale of the airport as being peddled by some persons, but a well-known and tenured to Public-Private Partnership (PPP) framework, which pulls private capital investment into public infrastructure while government retains ownership and regulatory or supervisory authority.

“We call on the federal government to hasten this process, for the people of the South East region in particular and Nigeria in general to start benefiting from the huge possibilities and blessings it holds.

“Indeed, we also have faith in federal government through the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development to entrust AIIA to a concessionaire with the financial and technical prowess, strong international pedigree and reputation as well as antecedent of verifiable successes to actualise the target. Nothing less than this is acceptable and capable of catalysing the much-needed South East regional economic prosperity and transformation,” the statement added.

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