Yambio To Get A New International Airport At ‘Mumbai’ The Minister of Physical Infrastructure and Public Utilities in Western Equatoria State, Engineer Boutros Magaya has told Gurtong during the Equatoria Conference in Juba that his Ministry has opened roads to the new location for Yambio International Airport to soon be constructed. 25 April 2011 Yambio To Get A New International Airport At ‘Mumbai’ WES. Minister of Physical Infrastructure, Eng. Boutros Magaya interviewed [©Gurtong]
By Juma John Stephen JUBA, 25th April, 2011 [Gurtong] – The Minister of Physical Infrastructure and Public Utilities in Western Equatoria State, Engineer Boutros Magaya has told Gurtong during the Equatoria Conference in Juba that his Ministry has opened roads to the new location for Yambio International Airport to soon be constructed. “The new Western Equatoria State International Airport is 23 kilometres North of Yambio, between Yambio and Li-Rangu town in an area popularly known as Mumbai, and so it’s likely to be called ‘Mumbai International Airport’,” Eng. Boutros confirmed. He added that, “We chose that area because we are trying to move the new town of Yambio North-wards as stated in our new strategy, we are moving towards river Sowa because we have vast land there. If you look at the current geographical map of Western Equatoria State, the population is only occupying 25% of the land and the remaining 75% is empty without any utilisation that is why we want to move North-wards.” According to the Minister they have started working on the road linking the new airport. He pointed out that this is how they will open development initiatives in the State once the airport is open, there is going to be diverse Infrastructural developments along that road. “When we open the road we will create a 62 kilometres stretch and we are looking for investors to put up proper infrastructure,” the minister added. Boutros said that the Ministry for Physical Infrastructure and Public Utilities is a broad Ministry which deals with land management, construction of roads and bridges, general buildings including; schools, offices, supervision and giving building permits, supply of electricity, water resources provision, the civil aviation licences all within Western Equatoria State which is also tasked to relocate all the State Ministries North-wards. “As it stands at the moment we are looking at moving Northwards of Yambio and all the Ministries have to establish their headquarters there,” he clarified. Boutros further explained that a road linking Bazingua up to Saura will be constructed as a shortcut for all the people coming from Maridi going to Tambura. They will use this shortcut since it passes through the new Yambio town where all new institutions of the Government of Western Equatoria are to be built. According to the Minister, half of the State still lacks adequate supply of clean drinking water to its citizens, and that at least Maridi has water but the 10 County Capitals are not yet connected with water systems due to lack of funding. The State has 56 feeder roads yet to be constructed and only 20% of the roads are constructed according to the Minister. He stressed that road construction is very expensive and the State only receives 1.5 Million Sudanese Pounds per fiscal year, hence hindering the construction of roads. “As a result, service delivery priorities in the State are dwindling since the feeder roads implementation projects are slow due to lack of funding. So we want to advocate that at least they (Government of Southern Sudan Ministry of Transport and Roads) should increase the funding to the States to at least 20 Million Sudanese pounds.” Engineer Boutros suggested. “With 20 Million I can do 20 feeder roads every year depending on the local contractors engineering standards and using quality control. Within five years we should have done a good number. But the way things are moving now, it means that I can only do one feeder road per year and 50 feeder roads will take me 50 years,” he disclosed. Posted in: Home -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "JFD info" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/jfdinfo?hl=en.
