Tanzania: Certainly Acquires US$ 272 Million Loan from African Development Bank for the Construction of a New Airport

By Abdul Rahman Suagibu –

NEW AFRICA DAILY NEWS, Freetown, Sierra Leone- TANZANIA has confines effectually, $272 million loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to construct a new international airport at its administrative capital – Dodoma, part of a program to extend the East African nation’s infrastructure. The airport will be built in Msalato, 12 km (7 miles) from Dodoma. It duration will take four years. The Abidjan-based lender said in a statement late on Thursday, 19^th December, 2019.

The proposed airport will have a capacity to handle 1 million passengers annually, though the city has a population of just over 2 million people, AfDB stated. In October, the government said it had finished moving all its administrative functions to Dodoma from the commercial capital Dar es Salaam.

Tanzania’s President – John Magufuli, bynamed “The Bulldozer” for the way he forwards through projects, assured when he was elected in 2015 to reform Tanzania’s economy, which investors and opposition politicians say is held back by red tape and corruption, and said he would start a program to develop public infrastructure.

The new airport and a high-speed railway already under construction would add value to the development in Tanzania’s countryside, Amadou Oumarou, director of AfDB’s Infrastructure and Urban Development Department.

As of November, its lending portfolio to Tanzania stood at $2.1 billion, with just over half of it going to transport projects, according to AfDB data.

Tanzania is not alone in the region in dapping resources to enhance its air transport network.

Rwanda said in early December that Qatar Airways had agreed to take 60% stake in a new $1.3 billion international airport, with an initial capacity of 7 million passengers a year.

For New Africa Daily News Abdul Rahman Suagibu Reports,  Africa Correspondent

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