Msalato international airport along Dodoma-Arusha highway in Tanzania

At a national occasion to lay the Msalato International Airport project’s foundation stone, Rogatus Mativila, the chief executive officer of the Tanzania Roads Agency (TanRoads), stated that the area, which covers 4500 hectares, has largely been compensated.

He claimed that the Tanzania Airports Authority (TAA) had contracted a Tunisian company to carry out the task in 2017. The deal was worth $1.8 million and had an end date of 2019.

The government already acquired a concessional loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB). It is said that the loan was meant for feasibility studies as well as for creating detailed designs in 2015.

He added that the total capacity of this airport is 32 million passengers annually. He also said that this level of operation is not anticipated in this century.

Large aircraft with 500 passengers on board, such as the Airbus 380, will be able to land without difficulty. Additionally, the initial passenger service facilities are planned to accommodate 1.5 million passengers per year.

Work will be carried out in stages so that a huge Boeing 787 Dreamliner with 350 passengers can land.

The project’s funding

This phase will be funded using concessional loans from the African Development Bank (AfDB). Two contractors will be involved, and the loan contract calls for $329.64m. According to Mussa Mbura, the TAA’s director general, there were 435 airports as of March of last year. 194 of those airports were operated by the government.

Private airports totaled 241, while 69 percent of airports currently meet international protection and security standards. The objective, according to him, is to reach 75% of airports during the next inspection in fiscal 2023–2024.

Read also: Construction of Lekki-Epe International Airport in Nigeria approved

As per agreements reached by President Samia Suluhu Hassan during a visit to France earlier this year, plans to rehabilitate the second passenger building (Terminal II) of the Julius Nyerere International Airport are set to begin in June 2024.

By adding Msalato International Airport, it will be the fourth international airport. It will attract more airlines to operate direct flights and encourage economic growth.

The regional commissioner, Rosemary Senyamule, stated that 3,368 residents received payments totaling 16.93 billion dollars. She said that the Treasury was notified in the cases of ten more residents whose compensation needs a total of 80 million dollars.

The cost of constructing the Msalato International Airport

The airport’s construction will cost $271 million, according to Dr. Patricia Laverley, the AfDB’s country manager. Dr. Patricia said that the airport’s financing is scheduled over a three-year timeframe.

President Samia issued a warning to those who will be listed for employment, asking them not to try and steal construction materials or sabotage the project.

According to her, all airport construction projects are still in progress, with Msalato being one of the major ones whose implementation begins this fiscal year.

She emphasized that the airport is being built in adherence to the standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)and projected that well-supervised contractors will complete the project by the end of next year.

Reported earlier

Jan 2020

Tanzania secures US $272m for construction of an international airport

The government of Tanzania has announced it has secured a US $272m loan from African Development Bank (AfDB) to construct an international airport in its capital city Dodoma.

The project is part of a program to expand the East African nation’s infrastructure. It will be built in Msalato, 12 km from Dodoma. It will include a passenger terminal, runway, and related infrastructure.

Also Read: RGM International Airport expansion works underway in Zimbabwe

International airport

The new airport project which will take approximately four years to construct will have the capacity to handle 1 million passengers annually and will have a runway of just over 2km in length. Project funding The funding package comprises a US $198.6m loan from the AfDB, US $23.52m from the African Development Fund, and US $50m in co-financing from China’s Africa Growing Together Fund, which the AfDB manages.

Located in the center of the East African country, Dodoma has been the official capital since 1973, but ministries resisted relocating from the busy port metropolis of Dar es Salaam until recently. Only in October last year did President John Magufuli officially move his office to the city of about 410,000 people.

“An expanded air transport network in Dodoma, together with the ongoing high-speed railway construction on the central corridor, are necessary infrastructure investments to help unlock and disperse spatial development in the countryside. This will strengthen the city’s potential as a strategic growth pole in keeping with Tanzania’s national development aspirations of fostering shared growth for all the regions,” said Amadou Oumarou, the AfDB’s infrastructure, and urban development department director.

May 2021

Construction of Msalato International Airport in Tanzania to start soon

The construction works of the proposed Msalato International Airport (MSIA) in Tanzania are expected to start after this financial year according to the Tanzania Airports Authority.

This will probably come following the approval of the 2021/22 budget that was recently presented to the East African country’s parliament by the Ministry of Works and Transport. In the over US$ 1.6bn budget, the Ministry has allocated close to US$ 14M to facilitate the construction of the next-generation international airport in Dodoma. The airport project also benefits from the over US$ 2bn budget approved by the Parliament of Tanzania in the financial year 2020/21.

The African Development Bank will support the implementation of the project through a US$ 272.12M loan. US$ 198.6M of the loan will come from the African Development Bank, US$ 23.52M from the African Development Fund (ADF), and US$ 50M in co-financing with the Africa Growing Together Fund (AGTF).

An overview of the project

The proposed airport is to be built along the Dodoma-Arusha highway, approximately 12 km from the Dodoma Central Business District (CBD) on a 45 square kilometers piece of land.

Also Read: Bugesera International Airport phase 1 to be delivered by Dec 2022

The project will entail the construction of a runway, main passenger aircraft parking apron, aircraft control tower, passengers terminal and office buildings, car parking lots, shops, supermarkets, banking facilities, and other ancillary facilities such as fuel depots, airport catering, general aviation facilities and electrical and mechanical services including transformer and generator rooms, mechanical ventilation plant, refuse disposal units, pump rooms, etc.

It will be carried out in two phases over a period of four years.

A strategic project derived from Tanzania’s Development Vision (TDV) 2025

The construction of the MSIA is a strategic project derived from the current Tanzanian Five Years Development Plan (2016/2017-2020/2021) under Tanzania’s Development Vision (TDV) 2025.

Upon completion, the project will support the government’s current priority to relocate administrative functions from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma, and in so doing, meet the anticipated increase in connectivity and access needs in the medium-to-long term.