Cape Town - The Airports Company of South Africa, a state-owned entity that manages the country’s airports, spent R323m on runway rehabilitation at four regional airports by the end of August, according to Transport Minister Dipuo Peters.
The spending was carried out between November 2012 and August 2014, the minister reported.
However, Acsa planned to spend over R3bn on a new runway at the Cape Town International Airport.
“Construction is planned to commence in mid-2016 and completion targeted for the end of 2018,” said Peters in reply to a question from Christian Hunsinger, a DA MP.
The minister reported that R4.8m had been spent in the 2013 financial year on the touchdown zone portion of a runway at the OR Tambo International Airport in Gauteng.
A breakdown of actual expenditure on the regional airports was R171m on the runway and taxiway rehabilitation project at the East London airport, R53.7m on runway rehabilitation at the Kimberley, Northern Cape, airport; R30.6m on the rehabilitation of a secondary runway at Port Elizabeth International Airport and R68m on the rehabilitation of a runway at the George Airport in the Western Cape.
All these projects came under budget. Budgets set aside for East London was R189m, R54m in Kimberley, R32m in Port Elizabeth and R89m at George.