Airports boss sent on forced leave

Kenya Airports Authority managing director George Muhoho has been sent on compulsory leave two months before his contract expires.

Mr Muhoho, a close ally of President Kibaki, was asked by the KAA board of directors to leave his post early.

It comes after the Efficiency Monitoring Unit (Emu) in the Prime Minister’s Office delivered a damning report on the goings-on at the authority.

The report covers the expansion work at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, among other things.

Another term

Sources familiar with operations of the authority said Mr Muhoho had asked for another three-year term, which would have taken his tenure at KAA to nine years if granted.

The managing director of the authority is appointed by the board, but the chairman is appointed by the President.

The practice recently has been for parastatal chiefs to serve a maximum two terms and then retire.

Highly placed sources within KAA told the Nation that Mr Muhoho’s request for a third term could not be granted because the Emu report is not favourable for him and his team.

Mr Muhoho has had an eventful tenure at KAA, during which the parastatal was turned into a profitable outfit, but there have also been questions about some of its undertakings.

Although it has been argued that Mr Muhoho’s enviable position in Government owes a lot to his near filial relationship with the country’s chief executive, he is on record refuting the claims.

He maintains that it has nothing to do with him being close to President Kibaki.

Amidst global terrorist threats and the so-called Armenian brothers who brought a security scare at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), Mr Muhoho was grilled by a commission, which wanted to know how safe Kenya’s airports were.

Biggest challenge

Mr Muhoho is on record saying that the biggest challenge facing all international airports was security and Kenya was no exception.

“We are as safe as any other airport in the world. Nobody will ever tell you that we are immune to insecurity. But we have made every effort to ensure that our airports are safe and secure,” he is quoted as having said.

KAA had earlier announced major plans to upgrade airports at a cost of about Sh10 billion.

The expansion was to make Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) a major regional hub in Africa by chasing a Federal Aviation Agency Category 1.