Due to the rising passenger traffic at Entebbe International Airport, Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has undertaken the modification and upgrade of the arrival immigration counters at a cost of UGX 308,387,100, funds that are internally generated. The modification and upgrade of the immigration counters was revealed by the CAA Managing Director Dr. David Kakuba during a Transport sector review meeting with a technical and evaluation team from ministry of works on Monday.
Dr. Kakuba indicated that works on the modification and upgrade of the immigration counters commenced on August 1, 2017 and the counters will be increased from 14 to 20 to better serve the growing passenger traffic at Entebbe International Airport.
China Nanjing was awarded the contract to modify the immigration counters which will be completed by September 30, 2017.
“The technical monitoring and evaluation team from the Ministry of works is on a fact finding mission to review the progress on the different projects that are being undertaken to upgrade and expand Entebbe International Airport. They are here to ascertain whether we (CAA) have been able to properly utilize the USD200m loan that we acquired from Exim Bank. They will compile a joint transport sector review report which will be published in September”, Dr. Kakuba stated.
“So far 25 percent has been completed on the ongoing works to construct a new and modern 100,000 cargo center while 16 percent has been completed on the upgrade and expansion of the Passenger Terminal. Once the construction of the cargo center is completed in October 2018, the old cargo terminal will be demolished to give way for the construction of the passenger terminal which will commence in 2019 and will be completed in 2021”, Dr. Kakuba added.
He continued,
The upgrade and expansion of Entebbe International Airport is vital because we have witnessed a tremendous increase in passenger traffic from 118,000 in 1991 to 1.5 million passengers in 2016 while cargo volumes have increased from 6600 metric tones in 1991 to 69,000 metric tones in 2016.
