Mayor’s new plans for city airport, market

Tshwane mayor Randall Williams has announced plans to get both the Wonderboom airport and Tshwane fresh produce market back on track.

He said MMCs would be assigned to ensure they track the progress being made to address the issues at these facilities.

“I will ensure there is now executive oversight at both Wonderboom airport and the fresh produce market,” Williams said.

His comments on the airport came months after the facility was marred by litigation over the transactional advisors who were appointed to assist the Tshwane metro determine a way forward for its future.

“I will also be deploying staff from the office of the executive mayor to conduct random site inspections in order to verify and check information pertaining to the administration of these institutions,” he said.

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Williams, however, did not respond to Rekord’s enquiries on the details of what the executive oversight at the both the airport and market would entail.

It was also unclear how soon the newly announced MMCs would tackle the challenges which have marred the airport, particularly.

Earlier this year, Tshwane metro roads and transport chairperson Elmarie Linde said a previous acting airport manager was reappointed to the airport in a bid to return the airport to its former glory after it was downgraded to category 2 in October 2019, but also after the Pretoria high court ruled against the metro’s appointment of the consulting company which ran the airport.

“Hendrik Kleynhans was re-appointed last month to organise the upgrade of the airport to a category 5 airport,” Linde said at the time.

She said the airport’s management was working towards returning the airport to its former ranking and resolving the challenges it faced.

“The airport suffered under private contractors who brought the once successful and busy airport to almost a standstill within two years,” Linde said, adding that changes were reportedly “already visible” since the manager’s appointment and that the focal point was mending relationships with tenants and setting its operations on course.

“The focus is on restoring the relationship with tenants, to get airport operations back on track and to normalise the airport by addressing non-compliant issues with the Civil Aviation Authority identified as risks,” she said.

Delivering judgement in the urgent application which was brought forward by the Wonderboom Airport Interest Group (WAIG), Judge J Ranchod said: “The appointment of the second respondent (Ntiyiso Consulting) as an external mechanism and as a transactional advisor for the structuring of assets and the implementation of an optimal revenue generation plan for the Wonderboom national airport is suspended.”

The metro was ordered to appoint a new airport manager within two weeks of the judgement in February.

Former mayor Stevens Mokgalapa said they would appeal the ruling despite holding the law in “high esteem”.

“The decision to appeal this is in the interests of restoring optimised operational capacity and profitability of Wonderboom airport.”

WAIG welcomed the court ruling.

“This is a step in the right direction to ensure that the airport is managed in an efficient manner and to the benefit of the tenants of the Wonderboom airport, the residents of Tshwane and all ratepayers and taxpayers within Tshwane,” chairperson Christian Maiorana said.

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