Roads are the priority, not Entebbe Airport
Jun 03, 2004
SIR— I read with surprise the proposal by works, transport and communication minister John Nasasira to build an airport in Kampala so as to “decongest traffic at Entebbe International Airportâ€.
SIR— I read with surprise the proposal by works, transport and communication minister John Nasasira to build an airport in Kampala so as to “decongest traffic at Entebbe International Airportâ€.
Quite clearly, this is a big joke! Entebbe Airport must be one of the most idle airports in the world! For all I know, Entebbe has an average of eight international flights in a 24-hour day and about six internal flights! We probably only get three cargo flights a week!
Many airports have flights queuing to land or take off.
Heathrow Airport has over 150 flights landing every hour. I visited Goma town in eastern DR Congo in May last year and I was impressed that for such a small town, the airport receives about 10 flights every hour during day time.
Mind you, all these use the small runway that was left when the volcano buried over half of the town in 2001. Goma has mostly cargo flights, but their traffic count makes our Entebbe Airport a joke. And now we hear that Entebbe is congested!
The minister plans to spend $123m to build another airport. Interestingly, we are told about consultants developing the national transport master plan. It seems to me the consultants have got Uganda’s priorities all wrong! The priority today is the roads, not airports.
I recall, however, that there is an earlier master plan which proposed dual carriages for Kampala-Entebbe, Kampala-Jinja and Kampala- Bombo.
What happened to these plans? If we had a first class dual carriage between Kampala and Entebbe, with fly-overs say at Kibuye and Clock Tower, we would not be talking about any congestion on Entebbe Road.
I would urge Mr Nasasira to read Joachim Buwembo’s article that first appeared in the Sunday Vision of June 8, 2003, about fixing Kampala’s traffic problems.
That article, reproduced in the Kampala Motorist, no. 20, remarked that we do not need international consultant firms being paid millions of dollars to come and tell us what S6 students in Kampala could advise. Please, let us spend the money we have on roads.
Stephen Odoi
Kampala
Quite clearly, this is a big joke! Entebbe Airport must be one of the most idle airports in the world! For all I know, Entebbe has an average of eight international flights in a 24-hour day and about six internal flights! We probably only get three cargo flights a week!
Many airports have flights queuing to land or take off.
Heathrow Airport has over 150 flights landing every hour. I visited Goma town in eastern DR Congo in May last year and I was impressed that for such a small town, the airport receives about 10 flights every hour during day time.
Mind you, all these use the small runway that was left when the volcano buried over half of the town in 2001. Goma has mostly cargo flights, but their traffic count makes our Entebbe Airport a joke. And now we hear that Entebbe is congested!
The minister plans to spend $123m to build another airport. Interestingly, we are told about consultants developing the national transport master plan. It seems to me the consultants have got Uganda’s priorities all wrong! The priority today is the roads, not airports.
I recall, however, that there is an earlier master plan which proposed dual carriages for Kampala-Entebbe, Kampala-Jinja and Kampala- Bombo.
What happened to these plans? If we had a first class dual carriage between Kampala and Entebbe, with fly-overs say at Kibuye and Clock Tower, we would not be talking about any congestion on Entebbe Road.
I would urge Mr Nasasira to read Joachim Buwembo’s article that first appeared in the Sunday Vision of June 8, 2003, about fixing Kampala’s traffic problems.
That article, reproduced in the Kampala Motorist, no. 20, remarked that we do not need international consultant firms being paid millions of dollars to come and tell us what S6 students in Kampala could advise. Please, let us spend the money we have on roads.
Stephen Odoi
Kampala