The Minister of Aviation, Madam Cecilia Dapaah, stated that the facility would be used for the training of pilots and airline crew members for the country’s growing aviation industry as government worked on establishing a new national airline.

“We are losing our Ghanaian pilots and airline crew members; because we do not have a national carrier, we have lost almost all of them to other airlines. We intend to have a training school here to train these professionals,” she stated in an interview with the media during a working visit to the airport project.

Working visit

The minister, who was accompanied by her Deputy, Mr Alex Okyere Darko-Mensah, and officials of the Ghana Airport Company and Ghana Civil Aviation Authority, inspected the progress of work on the 25-million dollar project which started under the previous government.

The General Manager of Amandi Construction Limited, Mr David Benayun, told the minister and her entourage that  the entire project would be completed by the end of this year as work progressed on other facilities, including the terminal building with a control tower, a fire station, a two-kilometre access road and perimeter fencing.

He said provisions had also been made in the project design for future expansions of the airport.

Madam Dapaah expressed satisfaction with the progress of the work, especially with the perimeter fencing of the facility which she said should be replicated at all airports in the country to ward off encroachers.

She stated that the project would serve the purpose of connectivity within Ghana and the sub-region and boost trade and tourism in the region.

She urged the contractor, Amandi Construction Limited, to complete the project as scheduled. 

The project

The US$25-million dollar Ho Airport which commenced in 2015 is being funded on the balance sheet of the Ghana Airport Company, and is designed to accommodate 400,000 passengers annually.

The former President, John Dramani Mahama, in November last year commissioned the 1.6-kilometre runway which had been completed in the last quarter of 2016 as part of the phase one of the project. 

The Volta Regional Minister, Dr Archibald Letsa, said the project was beneficial to the region as it would cash in on the huge passenger traffic between the border town of Aflao and the Ashanti regional capital, Kumasi.