Gov’t spent $366 million on airport expansion project last year

-despite National Assembly’s non-approval of funds

Despite the National Assembly’s non-approval of funds for the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) expansion project, government spent $366 million on the controversial venture last year.

This was revealed at a media event yesterday during which the Ministry of Public Works reviewed its 2014 performance and outlined its projections for this year. Chief Executive Officer of the CJIA Ramesh Ghir announced the figures and when questioned about where the money was coming from given the National Assembly’s disapproval of the funding, Minister of Public Works Robeson Benn declared that the Ministry of Finance has deemed the funds “excess expenditure” and there is a greater risk if the money was not used.

“So, the other issue whether the National Assembly was right or wrong, as far as I am aware, the Chief Justice pronounced that they could not cut the money, that is what I recall… so we stick with that position,” Benn said.

On January 29 last year, acting Chief Justice Ian Chang had ruled that the National Assembly acted “unlawfully and unconstitutionally” by effecting cuts to the 2012 budget estimates, and also found that its power is limited to either giving or withholding approval.

The House subsequently withheld its approval for several programmes, including the CJIA expansion project.

Last December, APNU’s shadow Minister of Public Works Joseph Harmon demanded that government make a full disclosure about the state of the airport expansion project. The project is to be funded through a US$138M loan from China.

Meantime, Ghir yesterday, said that 304,000 square meters has to be excavated and backfilled and the area cleared to date is 34,013 square meters or 11%.

The total amount of humus to be excavated is 1,652,383 cubic metres and to date, 299,200 cubic meters have been removed. The total amount of sand to be backfilled is 10,456,760 cubic meters and so far, only 5.5% amounting to 575,250 cubic meters has been done.

 

The airport expansion project commenced on January 16th, 2013, with an original contract period of 32 months. The original completion date is 16th September this year with a defects liability period of one year.

The project covers the construction of a new terminal building measuring 16,000 square meters and the extension of the main runway by 3,500 feet for a final length of 10,500 feet which is said to be capable of accommodating the Boeing 747-400 jet aircraft.