Officials of Ogun State government, Federal Ministry of Aviation and other stakeholders will today meet over the concessioning of the Gateway Agro-Cargo International Airport.
The airport, located in the Iperu-Ilishan axis of the state, is nearing completion with aircraft already landing at the location.
Governor Prince Dapo Abiodun disclosed this on Channels TV programme. He said efforts by the state government to recoup every penny expended on the airport would begin with the take-off of the concessioning agreement.
Abiodun said that because of the world-class facilities available at the airport, the state government received many concessioning offers.
He said: “Returns on airport investments are not seen overnight. We have been receiving unsolicited offers from others who are desirous of concessioning this airport and paying us back everything the airport costs us.
“So, for us, our money has worked. We invested in building this airport to de-risk it because we realised that if we had gone ahead and advertised for others to come and build this airport for us, we probably would only have started building it at the end of our second term. So, we decided to bite the bullet. We invested. We have built that airport.
“Because of the standard that we have adhered to– we’ve built a world class airport here– we have now received unsolicited offers to concession the airport from us and I am happy to say that we have accepted one of those offers. By the grace of God, on Tuesday, we will be signing that concession. You will see the Minister of Aviation along with the heads of aviation parastatals signing with us to a third party who currently manages three other airports in Africa.
“And this third party would be paying the entire amount the airport has cost us. So, it would now be his responsibility to run this airport in line with the world’s best practices. He would be responsible for bringing in traffic to this airport, and I know that he is already speaking to some major cargo companies around the world. We’ve created this enabling facility.
“They said you build a road that connects you from one point to the other, but when you build an airport, it takes you from one point to the rest of the world. And we think that with what we’ve done, we’ve opened Ogun State to the rest of the world,” the governor said.