An inspection team led by Deputy Minister of Transport Le Dinh Tho on Saturday made a field trip to Dong Nai Province and worked with the provincial government over site clearance, compensation and resettlement for the Long Thanh International Airport project.
An inspection team led by Deputy Minister of Transport Le Dinh Tho on Saturday made a field trip to Dong Nai Province and worked with the provincial government over site clearance, compensation and resettlement for the Long Thanh International Airport project.
Data of Long Thanh District, Dong Nai Province shows about 5,000 hectares of land should be cleared to make room for the project with 4,730 households and 26 organizations to be reallocated. Around 70% of 15,000 affected people are farmers and the rest are rubber workers and those working for other sectors.
It would be hard for people aged over 45 to change jobs or work for factories. Moreover, land prices in the airport area have snowballed, making it difficult for the affected people to buy land there to build new homes.
At the meeting, Deputy Minister of Transport Le Dinh Tho said there need to be solutions and policies to support the affected people to find new jobs. Dong Nai Province should ask the central Government to disburse VND5 trillion (about US$220 million) as pledged for site clearance, resettlement and compensation for the project, he said.
The National Assembly (NA) on June 19 approved a proposal for separating compensation, site clearance and resettlement from the Long Thanh International Airport project and treat them as a sub-project to boost the pace of airport construction.
According to a report of Dong Nai Province, costs of site clearance, compensation and resettlement are estimated at VND23 trillion (over US$1 billion). However, the total amount which the Government has allocated for these components in the medium-term public investment plan for the 2016-2020 period is only VND5 trillion.
Where the remaining VND18,019 billion comes from is not known. In a report sent to the NA, the Ministry of Planning and Investment said it will work with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Transport to consider using backup funds for medium-term public investments to finance the project.
The Long Thanh International Airport project will be executed in three phases at a total cost of VND336.6 trillion (US$16.03 billion).
In phase one, which requires VND114.45 trillion (US$5.45 billion) and is scheduled for completion in 2025, a runway, a passenger terminal, and other auxiliary facilities will be built, with a capacity of 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tons of cargo a year.
A second runway and terminal will go up in the second phase, so raise the airport’s annual capacity will rise to 50 million passengers and 1.5 million tons of cargo. The airport will be capable of handling 100 million passengers and five million tons of cargo a year after phase three is complete.
(Source:SGT)
