Take charge of development process: AVL Chairman

The First Political Advisor of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Public Utilities, Bakoa Kaltongga, has appealed to ni-Vanuatu specialists in all sectors particularly in airport infrastructure development

to make sure they know their areas of expertise well so they can support the country’s development.

The First PA of MIPU who is also Chairman of Airports Vanuatu Limited made the call with some feelings of frustration recently following the issue with reappearing cracks on the Bauerfield Airport runway of Port Vila that caused a brief suspension of flights by Virgin Australia. The cracks reappeared following rehabilitation work on the runway lasting around three months earlier this year.

“From my experience in the private sector and the progress we’ve made so far with respect to infrastructure development and human resources capacity development, I believe that ni-Vanuatu must own the process of development and their own destinies, Kaltongga said in an interview with 96 BuzzFM’s Kizzy Kalsakau.

“And we need to be vigilant as to what we want and what is practical to us rather than getting people coming in and telling us what to do and finding out we’re having problems such as the recent issue with the Bauerfield Airport runway .

“We need to concentrate and we need to make sure that whatever is being put forward to government particularly the technical people who are specialized in areas especially in airport infrastructure and airport operations and pavement and runway specialists.

“We need to concentrate and make sure we advise government properly on whatever we are doing to develop this country especially in airport development.

“We don’t want to be listening to advice and after adhering to them and finding that we are having problems because some of these advice are sub-standard.”

He believed that while it is the technical people’s challenge “we have to learn by these challenges and mistakes because we are now moving on to a Code E airport which is much bigger and poses much larger challenges so our people learn in the process in airports development here in Port Vila and around the country.”