Promise Tracker: No upgrade on Arua Airfield 12 years later

The promise
On two occasions; in August 2005 and in July 2009, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) announced plans to expand and upgrade Arua Airfield, along with five others, to international standards.

In an interview with Daily Monitor on August 29, 2005, Mr Ignie Igundura, the spokesperson of CAA, indicated that Arua had been given priority because of its strategic location and huge business potential.

“Arua airfield, according to last year’s data from CAA, handled an average of eight aircraft movements (per day) and is the second busiest [in the country] after Entebbe International Airport,” Igundura said.

Again in July 2013, the then State Minister for Transport, Mr Stephen Chebrot, announced that CAA would, as part of a 20 year civil aviation master plan valued at $400 million (about Shs1.4 trillion), commit at least $160 million (about Shs576 billion) million towards the expansion and upgrade of Arua Airfield.

Mr Chebrot said the master plan targeted increasing competitiveness and enhancing Uganda’s reputation as East Africa’s tourism and investment destination.

The airfield, one of 12 administered by CAA and one of five upcountry airports authorised to handle cross-border air traffic for promoting tourism among member states of the East African region, is considered key in the development of a town touted as a prime investment destination.

Given the proximity of Arua to Uganda’s common border with both Southern Sudan and DR Congo, the town is seen as one with a huge potential to grow into a regional hub servicing Uganda and its two neighbours.

Arua Airfield experienced a mega boom during the 20-year Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency in parts of Northern Uganda, with many Arua-bound travellers opting for the less risky and quicker one-hour air travel instead of taking the tedious and risky road transport.

Besides taking nearly eight hours on the road, travellers risked snaking through the Murchison Falls National Park, or the thickets on the Karuma-Pakwach road, which the rebels had turned into springboards from which they often launched deadly attacks on vehicles making the 520-kilometre journey between Kampala and Arua.

Dozens of buses, commuter taxis and other small cars were ambushed and destroyed by rebels who would later kill the occupants before either looting or destroying whatever goods or valuables they would find. The full extent of the destruction has never been quantified.

The rebel menace saw four commercial airline companies, namely Eagle Air, United Airlines, West Nile Air and Challenge Air open shop and operate the Entebbe-Arua route. Those were later joined by Air Uganda, but the four have since folded business, leaving Air Uganda as the sole operator on the route.

CAA’s plan
CAA’s plan was to erect a new terminal building, extend the 1.8 kilometre runway to accommodate bigger crafts and upgrade the surface from gravel to bitumen and install visual aid devices, including automatic direction finder to facilitate landing at night or under foggy conditions.

Also included in the plan, which was meant to have been set into motion during the financial year 2005/2006, was the widening of the car park, construction of new staff quarters to allow employees reside close by the facility and be available on short notice.

Status
Indeed, a new terminal building was erected, but is yet to be completed. Work on expanding the runway was embarked, but has never been taken beyond grading to increase its length and width while the promised work on the tarmac surface has never been undertaken.

Similarly, work on the installation of navigation equipment and construction of staff houses has never been embarked on.

While Mr Ignie Igundura, recently told Daily Monitor that works on all the airfields that the statutory organization had planned to upgrade had hit a snag due to funding shortfalls, word in Arua suggests that there have also been issues evolving around disagreements over the kind and levels of compensation for land that CAA needed to acquire to facilitate the upgrade.

Impact
Although the airfield remains quite active in handling private charter planes, especially those heading to Sudan and DR Congo, the UN and Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) flights, it is clear that failure by government and CAA to see through the upgrade plans has had a negative impact on the volume of air traffic flowing into the facility.

With Uganda’s tourism sector averaging annul growth figures of at least 22 per cent and contributing nearly a quarter of Uganda’s total foreign exchange earnings, it had been projected that upgrading Arua Airfield would not only improve the figures, but also create knock-on effects to develop hotels and eateries to support tourism.

If what Mr Joseph Wambuzi, the proprietor of Oasis 24/7 says is anything to go back, that has not yet happened.

“We were supposed to stage a restaurant at the airport as early as 2015 but it hasn’t happened and it has affected our employability,” he says.

The projection had been that upgrading the facility would serve to boost the tourism sector as it would enable categories of A1 and A2 tourists make it to Arua in one hour before hopping onto cars and heading to Murchison Falls National Park and the Karuma Valley within two or less hours.

That category of tourists has for now been put off.
Upon completion, the airport would have helped to increase the amounts of revenue being generated in form of taxes, airport fees and visa fees, all of which are currently down to a minimum.

It had also been projected that even if it would only be temporary, an infrastructural development of such a magnitude would open up, at least for the duration of the upgrade period, the much needed employment opportunities. Those have not materialised.

Voices

“Delayed completion of work on the airfield is slowing down the economic growth of Arua in so many aspects. You realise that the Uganda Tourism Board has been advertising a lot of patentable rights about the tourism sector in West Nile region, unfortunately you find tourists are also left with only one way of accessing the area and that is by road,"
Mr Joseph Kyobe Wambuzi, proprietor of Oasis 24/7

“I think it’s a strategic and tactical move by those in power to deliberately delay this project due to their hidden interests because according to what Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) had been telling us over the media, this airport is very strategic because its nearer if one is flying to Europe or the United Arab Emirates. Why should one traveling to either of the two destinations first waste time and money by flying to Entebbe?” Mr Francis Drate, Communications’ Officer Business Consult Area

“I was involved in the acquisition of more land for the expansion of the airport because I know the benefits it would bring to the region. I know it can either take us to the world or bring the world to us, but the more we delay to complete this airport, the more time we are giving eastern DR Congo and Southern Sudan time to build theirs. This is not good for Uganda. I think that government should give CAA the money it needs to expedite the works so that it acts as an alternative to Entebbe,” Mr Bernard Atiku, The MP for Ayivu County

“This project has far-reaching implications on the prospects of business here. We think this can kick-start a move into export trading, which will earn us a lot of foreign exchange as a region and as a country. We understand government does not have funds to continue with the project, but I urge those in government to find the funds and expedite work here because the benefits are surely enormous”- Mr George Bayo, politician.

Official explanation

Dr Gabriel Aridru Ajedra, the State Minister for Finance, Planning and Economic Development (General Duties), who is also the MP for Vurra County in Arua District, says the work has not necessarily stalled.

He says the works, which are in line with Uganda’s Vision 2040, only hit a snag due to issues revolving around ownership of some of the land around the airfield, but says this has since been sorted out.

“There is no doubt that this is becoming an international airport and it is coming with a lot of benefits. First, warehouses are going to be constructed and the labourers will not come from outside.

Even later on, it will become a busy airport and it will create a lot of employment opportunities for our youths. We just have to be patient,” he says.

Daily Monitor position

In the Second National Development Plan (NDPII) 2015/2016 – 2019/2020, the government points out, among other things, limited connectivity to major tourism, oil and gas facilities as well as social services and lack of funding as some of the challenges the local air transport sector is faced with.

Government then commits itself to the need to develop an “adequate, reliable, and efficient multi-modal transport network”.

This might mean Uganda has to adopt a multi-pronged approach to infrastructural development.

Government should now walk the talk and commit resources towards the development of the country’s air transport facilities if Uganda is to make an attempt at attaining a middle income status by 2020.

Uganda needs this infrastructure to boost the tourism industry, and enhance trade by quick movement of goods and services across the country.

Verdict

Promise was Realistic

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