Rose Ejembi, Makurdi

Benue state is to invest about N12billion in the construction of a new airport as part of measures to boost trade and investment, says Governor Samuel Ortom.

The Governor disclosed this while presenting the 2020 budget to the House of Assembly in Makurdi, yesterday.

Ortom, who spoke with journalists after the budget presentation said the airport would be financed through Internally Generated Revenue, (IGR) and would be completed in two years.

The governor said his administration took a bold step building the airport even as he expressed the optimism that the  project would facilitate growth and development at the grassroots.

“The benefits of such an airport for the state’s economic expansion aspirations cannot be over emphasized;  it will open up Benue for trade and investment. The process of constructing the airport will be an economic boom for enterprises and entrepreneurs in the state. Together with the efforts we are making to improve secondary road infrastructure, water and electricity supply, we expect infrastructure situation to change significantly over the next few years,” said Ortom.

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He explained that a previous attempt to construct a cargo airport could not materialise as it was private sector driven with the state making no financial commitment to  the project.

“Now, we are talking about Benue State project because we  have seen that it is very critical for a state which is the ‘food basket’ of the nation with vast potential in the agricultural value chain.  We believe with the establishment of an airport, international and national investors will come to invest.”

“We have already interacted with potential investors and with the regularization of our IGR through the Benue Internal Revenue Service (BIRS) we believe that we can fund the airport. The cargo airport we attempted to build was a private sector initiative. It failed because Benue government did not have any liability whatsoever,” Ortom said.The governor said work would commence on the airport once the 2020 budget is approved by the House.

Ortom who assured of the willingness of some banks to finance the project, said it would be sited at the same location of the proposed Benue Cargo Airport.

The Benue Cargo Airport was a N37.9billion project by Cargopolis Development Consortium (CDC) with Benue state expected to pay N3billion as compensation to land owners. But the project failed to take off due to several hitch.