Pretoria - Ward Councillor Lenise Breytenbach is set to facilitate a meeting between the community, stakeholders and Ntiyiso Consulting who’ve been appointed to steer Wonderboom Airport to greener pastures by the City of Tshwane.
Breytenbach said Ntiyiso Consulting was appointed in November last year to help manage and improve the output of the airport. With the new year having started, she thought it was best for everyone to know about the company’s vision and mission for the airport.
“A lot of residents have been asking me questions about the plans and the future of the airport. There have been a lot of things happening so I thought it’s best to host a meeting for everyone to know the plans for the airport going forward,” she explained.
She said so far some stakeholders were introduced to members of the consulting company and had discussions, which mostly revolved around safety issues and improving security measures.
She said the meeting date would be announced once confirmed.
“Everything else will still continue to be handled with professionalism and confidentiality that is necessary.”
Breytenbach said she was still unclear about whether the airport would be commercialised in future or now.
Last year, then mayor Stevens Mokgalapa and former mayoral committee member for Roads and Transport Sheila Senkubuge said the airport was running at a loss and the city was still ruling out the idea of commercialising it.
Currently, it costs the city R50 million to run and maintain but only yielding a shortfall revenue of R20m. This prompted Mokgalapa to consider it a “fake jewel” as some people thought it was something the city could brag about.
When it came to the airport, Mokgalapa and Senkubuge believed there were people leaking confidential
documents for their selfish interests to influence operations at the airport.