The delay in rehabilitating the dilapidated Port Harcourt International Airport, nearly five months after it was shut, is raising concern amongst air travellers.
Work on the airport, which was closed for repairs on August 18, is yet to start, foreclosing the December 2006 reopening of the facility, as earlier announced by the authorities of the PHIA.
Our correspondent reported that although the Federal Government last week awarded a N3bn contract for the resurfacing of the runway of the airport, the fixing of other facilities, which prompted the closure, is yet to begin.
Chairman of the Rivers State Universal Basic Education Board, Rev. Father Pius Kii, who was at the airport on Sunday to deliver a special prayer for those who lost their lives in the Sosoliso plane crash, frowned on the continued delay in completing and reopening the airport.
Kii said the delay was lacking in sound administrative, humanitarian and economic judgment by the nation�s aviation industry managers.
The priest noted, �It is indeed an issue of public shame that an international airport like this could be closed down for as long as we have experienced not minding the pains and inconvenience that the citizenry feel.
�Port Harcourt is not only the political capital of the South-South but also the soul of the Niger Delta famous for the sustenance of the Nigerian state through the generation of foreign exchange.
�This makes it imperative for the conspiracy of silence to be broken and a definite action taken to address the problems militating against the smooth operation of the PHIA so that air travellers would be spared the problems of risking their lives from Port Harcourt to Owerri to travel out of the city.�
Kii pointed out that with four degree-awarding institutions, two refineries, a petrochemical plant, three seaports and a leading liquefied natural gas plant, Port Harcourt deserves a special attention as the home of the hydro-carbon industry in Nigeria.
The leader of the Niger Delta Enlightenment Network, Chief Salvation Agele-Oba, also condemned the continued closure of the airport without any appreciable level of work to salvage it.
�We are indeed very sad and disappointed considering the time wasted and the inability of the authorities of the airport to start the rehabilitation of the facility�, Agele-Oba said on Sunday.