K90,000 for rehabilitation of Wanigela airstrip

THE people of Wanigela and surrounding communities in the Tufi local level government of Northern, are expected to have direct flights into their airstrip soon, thanks to the partnership of the Ijivitari development authority (DDA) and rural airstrip authority (RAA).
As a leadup to the partnership agreement, Ijivitari MP Richard Masere presented K90,000 yesterday to RAA for the restoration and rehabilitation of the Wanigela airstrip.
RAA safety health environment and quality manager Bobby Dara said they were happy to work with the MP and DDAs to ensure that rural airstrips were functional, serviceable and the local people had access to transportation.
He said RAA restored and maintained airstrips on a continual basis.
“Once we have put in the maintenance programme, we appoint airstrip maintenance officers with support from the communities to ensure it is operational.
“RAA has been given the mandate and has been working with the DDAs to ensure we have enough funds to maintain the airstrips and the local community has access to transport,” Dara said.
Masere said rural airstrips were an integral part of rural communities and the government had embarked on developing the agriculture sector.
“Today I’m here on behalf of my people to ensure the vision to make rural communities accessible to basic services such as rural airstrips is made possible,” he said.
“The cheque of K90,000 is for the first of the five rural airstrips that we plan to open this term and the next,” he said. “The important thing is that we want to open one airstrip at a time, to get it operational and functioning well.
“We then move to the next and slowly and overtime get more rural airstrips and open opportunities for our people to export their cash crops.”
Masere said one of the Ijivitari’s five-year development plans was to develop the agriculture sector and they hoped the airstrips would reactivate those areas of exporting produce.
“The district has also purchased a tractor and a grass-cutter which will be shipped to Wanigela for the maintenance and upkeep of the airstrip,” he said.