Tuesday September 1, 2020
SCAA Director General, Ahmed Moalim Hassan
Beledweyne (HOL) - The Somali Civil Aviation Authority (SCAA) has distanced itself from a billboard suggesting a company named White Star Group was to build an airport in Beledweyne, terming it misleading.
SCAA Director-General Ahmed Moalim Hassan told HOL no company had been awarded a tender to build an airport, noting that such an ambitious project is subject to tendering and contracting procedures.
White Star Group told Hiiraan Online that they were not involved in the project described by the billboard. They added that they would be constructing a small terminal within the airport and the security checkpoints.
Hassan said the billboard ‘did not reflect the reality’. HOL has learned that the HirShabelle Government mounted the billboard at Ugaas Khalif Airport shows an artistic impression of an airport with the name of Star Group alongside that of the SCAA and national emblem appearing.
The SCAA Director said Star Group was to build a terminal and scanner at the airport and not a whole airport as implied by the board.
The SCAA has trained four individuals in Mogadishu to manage the Beledweyne airport. These newly trained staff will work in the control tower that the SCAA hopes to construct shortly. According to the director, similar training will soon commence in Dhusamareb and Baidoa.
The governor of the Hiiraan region and the mayor of Beledweyne joined the acting transport deputy minister Hirsi Aden Roble, SCAA boss and HirShabelle civil aviation minister Mohamed Ali Geel-Suge to lay the foundational stone for the new terminal.