TheCable

Peter Mbah, governor of Enugu, says the state is planning to establish an airline that would be focused on cargo and passenger service.

Mbah disclosed this on Wednesday when received members of the Aviacargo roadmap committee in the government house in Enugu. 

The governor, represented by Obi Ozor, state commissioner of transportation, said the planned airline, ‘Enugu Air’, was envisioned to operate as a multi-modal transportation system, encompassing both passenger and cargo services.

He said efforts have been geared towards building an ultra-modern warehouse for the storage and processing of farm perishables at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport in the state, in collaboration with the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).

“Enugu state government would establish an airline that would be focused on cargo freighting and passenger service, adding that he had set a target of 15 months to establish the airline and get it ready for certification by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA),” Mbah said.

ENUGU’S PLAN TO INCREASE AGRO-EXPORT

The governor also said there are plans to provide farmlands in each senatorial zone for the cultivation of cash crops that would be processed for export.

Mbah said his administration has laid out the plans to actualise this goal to boost the state’s revenue, create jobs and also build associated infrastructure, that would enable the state to be a net exporter of different types of farm produce.

“Your plan to encourage the export of farm produce coincides with our plan to boost our revenue through the export of agricultural produce to realise our objective of increasing the state’s earnings from $4 billion to $30 billion within the next four to eight years” he said.

“We have elevated our ministry of agriculture to agro and allied ministry and we want to promote agriculture so that it will contribute about 40 percent to our gross domestic product (GDP).

“We shall establish 300,000 hectares of farmland in the three senatorial zones of our state. We aim to export farm produce and we have designed a common export facility we intend to construct with quality assurance and standardisation procedures.

“We have also identified our constraints. We believe that Enugu should have a cargo terminal and given the urgency with which we want to realise our goals, we need the cargo terminal as quickly as possible.

“We intend to have a cold chain facility and warehouses. We are interested in value addition.”

On his part, Ikechi Uko, coordinator of Aviacargo roadmap committee, said there was a need to increase the volume of cargo, especially agro-produce from Nigeria to boost foreign exchange and to create jobs.

According to Uko, many cargo planes that arrive in Nigeria to drop products fly back empty because Nigeria does not have much to export, “yet we have airports all over the country but we have not been able to use what we have invested to solve our problem”.