African governments should surrender their airports to private investors to make them more efficient and attractive for international travellers, Works and Transport Minister John Nasasira has suggested.

Mr Nasasira's comments come at a time when the government is still struggling to explain its dealings with an Asian company, Dodsal Group International, which expressed interest in running the country's only international airport at Entebbe. Without a clear explanation on details of the deal, the public has reacted with anger to what has been termed a planned sale of the airport.

"We need to develop and expand our airport facilities urgently. This calls for funding arrangements which currently have no hard and far fast rule," he told the gathering at the three-day symposium which aims at finding solutions to the high operation costs of Africa's airports and air navigation services.

In support of Mr Nasasira's proposal, Mr Robert Kobeh Gonzalez, the president of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), said, privatisation or commercialisation of African airports is an excellent take, since it is the trend in Asian and European countries.

"It is a very good scheme because they (airports) need flexibility and we promote it. If they are inside the normal bureaucracy of the government, they are difficult to operate," said Mr Gonzalez, in an interview with the Daily Monitor on the sidelines of the conference. He, however, added that it is a sovereign decision each country can opt for.

Source: The Monitor