Queries over multi-million dollar airport spend

SOLOMON ISLANDS – Questions are being raised about New Zealand spending millions of dollars on an airport development in Solomon Islands when the airport will still not be fully usable.

New Zealand aid has allocated more than US$22 million dollars for infrastructure projects in Solomons’ Western Province but the key airport development will only be useful in emergencies.

US$10 million has been spent on upgrading the domestic runway servicing the western provincial capital Gizo and on an overland road from the international port of Noro to Munda.

The main focus has been the upgrading of the airport at Munda with US$6 million already spent on extending and upgrading the runway and a further $6 million approved this year for navigational lighting, a perimeter fence, and two second-hand fire engines.

Despite the massive injection of aid funding, the airport will still not be a fully functioning international airport until a terminal is built, and that is not on the plans.

“To put it in perspective it’s more than we spent in the Cook Islands in the 2014-2015 financial year,” Terence Wood, a research fellow at the Australian National University and a contributor to the New Zealand Aid Development Dialogues, said.

He is sceptical about the return on investment from the Western Province infrastructure project.

“For that amount of money you would want to see some major economic dividends for the Munda runway in Solomon Islands and the trouble is that we haven’t yet and we probably never will.”

The chief executive of Solomon Airlines Gus Kraus has also expressed reservations about the usefulness of the airport. He says what he finds odd is that no one is talking about the need for an international terminal at Munda.

“People seem to be not trying to put the airport terminal into the equation but there’s no point in landing a jet there without proper facilities to cater for them. You’ve got to have a terminal that can take that size aeroplane.”

But in the Western province, the airport development is being received with much excitement.

“The opportunity is phenomenal I think any operator within close proximity of the Munda airstrip will definitely see the benefits of this,” said Belinda Botha, owner of Dive Munda her operation is five minutes walk Munda airport.

But the expansion could still be a long way off for local tour operators like Botha as even with the additional upgrades scheduled for completion in June next year, the Munda airport will only be attaining emergency alternative status.

However New Zealand High Commissioner Marion Crawshaw says there will be immediate benefits from the upgrade especially to airline operators who currently have to carry up three tonnes of extra fuel per flight because the closest emergency alternative runway to the Honiara International Airport is two hours away on the island of Santo in Vanuatu.

Meanwhile, New Zealand is in talks with the Solomons’ government about upgrading three more provincial airports to enable them to take larger domestic aircraft. - RNZI