Is there more than meets the eye at KAA?

A popular adage says where there is smoke there is fire. In the light of this, what is cooking for so long and so smokily at Kenya Airports Authority (KAA)?

It is often a sign of success when an entity is in the eye of the public through positive Press coverage, but there is reason to worry when anyone hogs the headlines for all the wrong reasons. It boils down to: Either the critics are so wrong so many times or the entity is happy with any publicity, regardless of the content. And all this because there is change of guard in the air.

Now, nothing survives forever, not even rocks. Not even Permanent Secretaries are permanent and must be replaced. This is not necessarily bad: it can mean that something new is being created. It also indicates fresh blood is being injected to strengthen operations.

Therefore anyone or object standing in the way of progress must necessarily step aside for the greater good.

Since the long-serving KAA Managing Director George Muhoho admitted side-stepping the board of directors and proceeded to weave a job description for the successor in his soon-to be-vacant office, there is clearly something the matter.

Is it not time Parliament froze the planned recruitment of a new managing director until the smoke clears? And with barely two weeks to his retirement, there is no reason Mr Muhoho cannot be sent on leave pending retirement.

Flagrant abuse

In his own words to the Parliamentary Committee on Transport, he single-sourced and sought to handpick his successor at KAA by ensuring his preferred candidate way ahead of challengers. If this is not flagrant abuse of office and privilege, then nothing else can match it,

This should now be a matter to be addressed by the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission as trampling on the Public Officer Ethics Act.

Corruption is not limited to giving or taking money or other kick-backs. It is the carpeting of a crony’s path into high office. It is a wonder the person being groomed is not sufficiently outraged at being propped into a job he clearly qualifies for without the intrigue.

It also begs the question about what the outgoing gentleman has to hide considering he would seemingly only be comfortable with a stooge at the helm of a body of strategic national interest that operates nine civilian airports and airstrips.

As established by an Act of Parliament in 1992, KAA provides facilities for aviation services between Kenya and the outside world by ensuring efficiency, superior quality service and increased capacity in the airports. This is clearly not a job for any Kamau, Wanjala and Onyango.

Hard questions need to be asked of the outgoing MD’s recruitment gamble.

We remember the hush-hush 80-year concession signed with a Qatari outfit that was meant to splash petro-dollars on a futuristic transit complex that would, the said, employ hundreds of Kenyans directly and thousands indirectly. But if the Qataris are hesitant about Kenya’s security clearance, who vetted them on theirs?

To compound this litany of doubt, the outgoing MD actually left public office and campaigned openly for one political party in the last General Election again in contravention of the Public Officer Ethics Act.

was re-hired

Further, Kenyans received the news of his reappointment with a healthy pinch of salt after he was re-hired at the ripe age of 71 even as thousands of youths brandish impressive certificates.

This is the same officer that wants to manage his own succession. And to this we ask, is there a fire under all this smoke? Is there more than meets the eye? Why has retirement suddenly become so ignoble? Just what is this KAA posting worth? Do we need a splash of cold water in our faces to start a new, more serious conversation about where Kenya is headed?