A contract worth over K90 million has been signed for the upgrade of Kavieng Airport in New Ireland Province.
A contract signing was witnessed today between the State, contractor China Railway Construction Engineering Group and the National Airports Corporation.
The contract for the upgrade of Kavieng Airport was awarded to the lowest substantially responsive bidder, which is the China Railway Construction Engineering Group, at the value of ninety-one-million, eight-hundred-and-fifty-thousand, four-hundred-and-sixty-three Kina, forty-seven toea.
The National Airports Corporation acting managing director and CEO, Ephraim Wasem, said the Kavieng Airport upgrade will include aircraft pavement and strengthening, runway extension, new state-of-the-art terminal building, airfield ground lighting and associated works.
The project implementation unit, a unit within the NAC that supervises the Civil Aviation Development Investment Program (CADIP), will be overseeing works on the ground to ensure the implementation of the project progresses efficiently and is completed on time.
Funding was made available through the continued partnership between the PNG Government and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
“The Kavieng Airport upgrading project was put through a bidding process in 2019 whereby an expression of interest was issued, calling on qualified contractors to apply and bid for the project. Invitation for bids was issued through ADB’s website and the two daily newspapers,” said Wasen.
“A bid evaluation report was submitted to ADB for their review to ensure the evaluation was done in accordance with its procurement guidelines. After NAC board’s deliberation on the evaluation, the project implementation unit then obtained legal clearance from the State Solicitor’s Office to execute the contract.
“The final endorsement on the awarding of the contract was made by the National Executive Council after NAC made a submission to the Civil Aviation Minister, Lekwa Gure.”