MPs oppose bid to divert airport expansion funds

NAIROBI: National Assembly's Transport committee has rejected President Uhuru Kenyatta's bid to allocate Sh4.2 billion from an airport project to the National Restorative Justice Fund.

The President had sought to set up the fund to compensate victims of historical injustices, but he took the money from the Sh55 billion Greenfield terminal project.

In his State of the Nation address, President Kenyatta directed Treasury to establish a Sh10 billion fund over the next three years to be used for restorative justice.

The money was to be used to "provide a measure of relief" to victims of past injustices among them Wagalla massacre, the internally displaced people, the marginalised and at-risk regions and populations.

First instalment

To create the fund, Treasury had allocated the first installment of Sh4.2 billion for this purpose through the State Department for Devolution and the Presidency.

But the departmental Committee on Transport, Housing and Public Works has recommended that the money be reallocated to the project, of which Sh3.5 billion be used as counterpart funding for the Greenfield terminal for the 2015-16 financial year to get the project off the ground.

Greenfield is one of Kenya's Vision 2030 flagship projects and entails building of a new airport terminal at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA).

The project is expected to increase the capacity of JKIA from the current 6 million passengers per year to about 18.5 million annually by the year 2030 with Phase 1 handling 12.7 million passenger capacity per annum.