How Africa News
Meet Mahamadou Bonkoungou, Burkina Faso’s richest man and the creator and owner of EBOMAF, one of West Africa’s major construction enterprises. According to Billionaire Africa, the company is behind some of the most profitable construction transactions in West Africa worth more than $3 billion.
Aside from EBOMAF, Bonkoungou is involved in banking, having purchased the Togolese Bank for Commerce and Industry (BTCI) as well as Bonkoungou Distribution, a Burkina Faso-based distributor of heavy and light machinery for the construction, mining, and quarrying industries.
Bonkoungou is also the owner of Liza Transport, which he has expanded into the aviation industry. According to Billionaires Africa, he recently started Liz Aviation, a new commercial airline. Two ATR-type aircraft with 70 economy-class seats will be rotated twice daily by the airline.
On Thursday, April 27, 2023, the airline performed its debut flight between Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso.
The new airline’s opening was attended by high-ranking Burkina Faso officials, including the country’s president’s chief of staff, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, and the country’s Minister of Transport, Urban Mobility, and Road Safety, Roland Somda.
Anderson Medeh, the head of staff, underscored the airline’s importance not just to Burkina Faso, but to the entire West African sub-region, in a celebratory statement given on Captain Traoré’s behalf.
According to Transport Minister Somda, the airline would increase commerce volume between the economic capital and Ouagadougou by combining speed and security.
“This travel offer, which is in addition to that of the national airline Air Burkina, will undoubtedly boost the volume of trade between the economic capital and Ouagadougou, combining speed and security,” he said.
“We must therefore work to ensure that the plane is no longer seen as a luxury, but rather as a development tool that saves time and money,” he added.
The Director General of the National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC), Dr. Thomas Hyacinthe Compaore, said the new airline will advance the development of air transport in Burkina Faso.
“In a landlocked country like Burkina Faso, any new company that operates on its airport platforms contributes to a decisive advancement in the development of air transport. And this, in terms of increasing the practice of better communities and opening up by the possibilities of opening the national sky,” he said, according to Africa Aero.
On his part, Bonkoungou said expanding air services in the country will rejuvenate the country’s aviation industry by providing regular flights from Burkina to the Sub-region. By so doing, he hopes the country’s economy will grow and position the country as an economic power for growth and business creation.
The airline will also serve the Lomé-Niamtougou-Ouaga and Lomé-Ouaga-Lomé routes.
