– over $2.5M spent replacing stolen Bajan runway lights

Even as airport authorities attempt to deal with the many recent security challenges, they have been forced to expend over $2.5 million to replace six of the runway lights this country had borrowed from Barbados’s Grantley Adams International Airport for Carifesta X.

There has been theft of material from ground handling operations and more recently the stripping of copper wire from three new Guyana Power and Light (GPL) transformers. The authorities have since said that efforts were being made to increase security at the country’s main port of entry.

However, one official noted that even with the recent discovery of items stolen from the airport in the possession of a man living not far away, no one has been charged. “That in itself is a challenge,” the official lamented.

After the main runway lighting system was hit by lightning on several occasions and then went off completely, Transport Minister Robeson Benn had announced that the Bajan authorities had volunteered to lend Guyana the solar-powered lights. Along with some in stock here, the lights functioned well for Carifesta and onwards until the main system became operational again.

Benn has since said that the lights have been returned to Barbados. Airport officials also confirmed that the main runway lighting system became operational a few weeks ago.

In  the context of better security for the airport as well as the demand for more land as the expansion of the airport will be priority over the next few years, Benn reiterated in comments to this newspaper that the squatter situation was one that would have to be remedied sooner rather than  later.

Benn told Stabroek News that in the interest of  international civil aviation requirements, the demand for the land around the airport which the squatters currently occupy will become greater.

Benn noted that years down the line the passenger traffic at the facility will double and there will be need for expansion of the runway and the airport as a whole. “The land sequestered for airport development is the land that they are on. So we have to get back the land somehow.”

On September 12, a team consisting of soldiers and police overseers demolished several unoccupied structures near the Timehri fire station as anguished residents watched. Benn had defended the exercise and said it would continue until all persons living or operating on airport land were removed, even though many of the families have occupied areas there for some 50 years.

Benn said too that the squatters in the area were near to one of the country’s top military facilities and on land that belonged to the most “sensitive transportation facility”, the airport. As such “those persons who are on airport land will have to move,” Benn declared.

He had said too that there have been previous warnings from the government to this effect. However the focus is on causing minimum confusion and destruction to the possessions of affected persons.

The demolition exercise has since been halted and plans are in motion for the relocation of the squatters in the area. Some 200 persons are likely to be affected.

The small cafeterias are to be accommodated in a mini-mart to be established by the airport authorities. The vendors operating these stalls have since raised concerns about the location of the mart. However they are working with the authorities to find a suitable location.