Senegal’s Wade starts 2nd term with airport project
April 6, 2007
y Diadie Ba
DIASS, Senegal (Reuters) – Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade
marked the start of his second term on Wednesday by laying the
foundation stone of a new $460 million airport, the latest major
infrastructure project in the West African country.
"This airport is the first of the big projects I want to build
during my five-year term. Infrastructure is not a luxury for Africa, it
is a necessity for development," the octogenarian president said at an
event inaugurating work on the airport.
Wade took the oath of office for a second term on Tuesday at a
ceremony attended by almost a score of presidents from across Africa.
He won a February election in which opponents say his side bought votes
and doctored the electoral roll.
The Senegalese leader had campaigned on a pledge to create jobs and complete a major public works programme.
Much of the capital Dakar has turned into a construction site while
modern highways and hotels are built, partly for an Organisation of the
Islamic Conference summit due to be held here next year.
After presiding over a military parade marking Wednesday’s national
day celebrations, Wade inaugurated work on the new airport 45 km (28
miles) inland from Dakar, which is on a spit of land that is mainland
Africa’s most westerly point.
Saudi Binladin Group, which is owned by the estranged family of
Osama Bin Laden and has built more than two dozen airports around the
world, will lead the building consortium.
Wade said the airport would not cost the state "a penny".
Karim Wade, the president’s influential son, adviser and head of
the airport’s financing committee, said income from passenger taxes
from Dakar’s existing airport over the past two years had been kept in
an account to help finance the project.
"With the help of the Banque Marocaine pour le Commerce Exterieur
and BNP-Paribas, we have been able to mobilise nearly 350 million
euros, or around 230 billion CFA francs, on international financial
markets," he said.
Germany’s Fraport will manage the airport, in which the Senegalese
state will own a 45 percent stake, with the remaining 55 percent held
by Aeroport International Blaise Diagne (AIBD) SA, a company owned by
Senegalese investors.
Used as a hub for flights from Africa to Europe, the United States
and Brazil, Dakar’s existing airport has seen traffic grow rapidly in
recent years, but its location, surrounded by Dakar’s suburbs, limits
its potential to grow.
The new airport, named after the first black African elected to
France’s parliament in 1914, Blaise Diagne, should take 30 months to
build and have an initial capacity of 3 million passengers a year –
almost double the 1.7 million annual traffic handled by the existing
airport, a statement said.
It is also intended to attract more foreign tourists to Senegal and
fuel the growth of a planned new economic development zone outside
Dakar.
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