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The $318 million Sierra Leone airport project to be funded with Chinese loan has been cancelled by the new government of that country.
The new government finally announced the cancellation of a controversial Chinese airport project sanctioned by its predecessor.
News of the termination of the project was revealed in a letter addressed to the director stopping all contracts relating to the construction.
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The government says it cannot afford to repay the loan for the proposed Mamamah International Airport which is located outside Freetown.
It is designed to replace the current one in the town of Lungi, which is said to be an obstacle to development due to connectivity difficulties associated with it.
Lungi International Airport is located in the northern part of the country, just outside the capital city. It is separated from Freetown by an estuary which requires a ferry or boat journey to reach the capital.
Traveling from Lungi is tedious and the old government argued that it was affecting tourism and investment.
The new government, however, says the priority was to renovate the present airport and make it viable.
“After serious consideration and due diligence, it is government’s view that [it] is uneconomical to proceed with the construction of a new airport when the existing one is grossly under-utilised,” it says.
The letter from the Ministry of Transport and Aviation noted that it had appointed an official to take inventory and provide oversight of the assets.
The proposed Mamamah International Airport, named after its host community, was being constructed by the China Railway Seventh Group, with funding from China Exim Bank.
The project also entailed the construction of a new city in the vicinity and an exclusive economic zone.
In March, a week before the General Election that brought Gen Maada Bio to power, former President Ernest Bai Koroma presided over the ground-breaking ceremony marking beginning of the construction.
The airport was one of three major projects the Koroma-administration intended to be his legacy. The other two projects are the just-concluded port expansion and the planned bridging of the estuary that separates Freetown, from Lungi.
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But it faced strong opposition from the start, especially the international donor agencies – the World Bank and IMF.
They argued that the West African country had more important priorities than building a new airport, which would increase its debt burden.
As opposition presidential candidate, Gen Bio criticised the project during campaigns, but his government was also considering building a bridge linking the airport and the city, although through a fresh arrangement.
Source: East African
