Africa Top Success Ils font l'Afrique
Senegal intends to make of the Blaise Diagne de Diass International Airport (AIBD) being built, a driving force for the development of tourism. According to the manager of the new airport, the infrastructure will play a key role in the future of the Senegalese tourism.
« We move from 1,5 million passengers with the possibility of reaching 10 million passengers. The AIBD is really a futuristic airport« , esteemed Mr. Mbodj. The name of airport is suggestive. Diagne de Diass (1872-1934) was the first Black French representative of Africa. He was also a mayor of Dakar and the government High commissioner for the recruitment of the Black troops in French speaking West Africa and in French speaking Equatorial Africa.
The building works of the airport started on 3rd April 2007. The budget of the project is estimated at 235 billion CFA francs. In October 2013, Oumar Guèye, the Senegalese Minister of Tourism and Air transports considered that the delivery date of the airport should be in December 2014.
Mr. Mbodj found it necessary to reassure the national and international opinion for the respect of the rights of expropriated people within the framework of the realization of the project. « Not only we move populations but we re-accommodate them. It means that we should remove them from the place they were before, but we should also put them somewhere else in conditions ten thousand times better. And it was the case because the villages that are impacted by this project had neither water nor electricity« , he specified.
Original text by: Roger ADZAFO
