Plans for Cally Air intact, says Cross River

PLANS by Cross River State Government to establish a state-owned airline, Cally-Air, as well as an International Passenger and Cargo Airport in Obudu Local Government Area, are still intact.

Works on the projects are at advanced stages.

Commissioner for Aviation Jake Enya, who addressed reporters at the airport site, said the government has already procured two Boeing 737 aircrafts to launch the airline.

He said: “The process of procurement is completed. I assure you that we have paid and everything is done about it. We have two aircrafts on ground and we are only waiting for delivery.

“The state acquired about 1,500 hectares of land and compensation has been paid to the five communities that own the land. We paid almost N900 million which was approved by the governor and the State Executive Council (SEC).

“We have gone into the real work; we have cleared the entire site. The work going on now is piling and earth-works on the runway – the cutting and filling of the runway…”

Governor Ben Ayade will leave a huge positive impact in education at the end of his tenure in 2023, his media aide has said.

Ayade’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Christian Ita, spoke when he conducted reporters on a facility tour of the newly-established British-Canadian school. The school is located in Obudu council.

He said: “Construction is end-completion as you can see and it is expected that academic activities will begin before the end of year 2021.

“The original idea was to have a secondary institution like no other; a combination of both the British and Canadian curriculum. A lot of people fell this infrastructure is too big for a secondary school. I don’t know what the governor has done about that, but I do know there are considerations it might become a higher institution.

“This is one of the institutions Ayade has built in addition to the Teachers’ Training College (TTC) in Biase council. The infrastructure here can sustain even a university. So, we’re hoping that in a few months time, this would be completed. You can see that they’ve started landscaping and painting is on and, in a few months time, this place is expected to be up and running.”

Ita hinted that about 1,000 schools have been rehabilitated in the last five years.