South Sudan`s cabinet on Friday approved USD 28.4 million for the government to take over the country’s air traffic control whose construction was completed recently.
Addressing journalists shortly after the cabinet meeting chaired by President Salva Kiir on Friday, Information Minister Michael Makuei Lueth said Transport Minister Madut Biar presented a memo on the funds for the operation of the South Sudan Airspace Control Center to the cabinet.
“It is worth mentioning that up to this moment, the airspace is controlled from Sudan and this was simply because we did not have the facilities for this. Now the facilities have been built and we are left with the handing over so that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) can license us,” he explained. “So, for us to take over this facility and be operationalized, the ministry wanted a sum of $28,414,236. That is the cost for us to take over the center and operationalize it. It will also generate revenue because all these planes that pass over South Sudan pay for the use of the airspace but we have not been getting it because the Sudan government has been taking it all this time.”
“In case this airspace control becomes effective, it may generate a sum of $35,350,000 per annum that is because you will be charging all the planes all over so this was also passed and the minister of finance was directed to pay it,” Makuei added.
The council of ministers also approved a sum of USD 127,000 for the classification of hotels and their standards in the country.
Minister Makuei said the Minister of Wildlife Conservation and Tourism, Rizik Zachariah Hassan, presented a memo on accommodation, hospitality, catering, classification and standardization of hotels.
“South Sudan has not classified hotels and everybody comes and builds their hotels and calls it whatever they want yet hotels are supposed to be classified so that when paying for the service, you pay by the class of the hotel standard,” he said.
To clarify the issues of catering, classification, and standardization, hotels should be classified and facilities to be classified and this will cost them USD 127,000, this was approved by the cabinet because the committee will have to cover all the hotels operating in South Sudan because they are under wildlife and tourism, Makuei said.
“So this was approved and this amount which was approved was for facilitation, classification, and standardization of operations and so forth,” he said.
The cabinet also approved USD 25,000 for South Sudan`s membership fees to join the African Regional Labour Administration (ARLA). According to Makuei, the cabinet listened to a presentation by Labour Minister James Hoth Mai on a proposal for South Sudan to join the ARLA. The center provides training and other facilities to ministries of labor of member states.