KAA should rethink deal

An unfolding deal in which Kenya Airports Authority will lease the old Embakasi airport to a new budget airline raises serious questions about transparency and reveals lopsided decision-making on the part of KAA.

First, the tendering process through which OneJetOne obtained the concession was far from transparent. The tender advertisement was vague to the extent that it failed to fully explain the magnitude of the project. It is also evident that KAA did not bother to seek the approval of the Public Procurement Oversight Authority.

But this is not the first time the parastatal is being exposed for questionable dealings. At the end of last year, KAA was in the news after the government’s Efficiency Monitoring Unit questioned expenditure on its multi-million-shilling expansion programme. The dust seems to have settled.

In the latest saga, KAA will be hard put to explain how it intends to tackle congestion at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport after signing away one of the options it had for tackling the problem.

Currently JKIA is faced with ever-increasing traffic, which means that its priority should be looking for ways to ease pressure on this facility that was commissioned 30 years ago for half the number of passengers it now processes.

Instructively, recommendations of a government-appointed task force two years ago indicated that domestic flights be transferred to the old Embakasi airport as a way of easing congestion at JKIA.