Come clean on Adani JKIA deal to avert crisis

After many hours of chaotic scenes at the Jomo Kenya International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi following a workers’ strike that had brought the regional travel hub to a standstill, calm started returning to the facility last evening. This followed a return-to-work agreement signed between the workers’ union and the government. The workers are opposed to the planned takeover of this strategic national asset by a private Indian company.

Hundreds of travellers were stranded and highly inconvenienced, as the staff at JKIA and other airports across the country downed tools to protest against the reported controversial plan to lease the airport to India’s Adani Enterprises for a whopping 30 years. 
As part of the return-to-work formula, the government agreed to a scrutiny of documents related to the planned lease of this major airport and other KAA facilities.

The Kenya Aviation Workers Union (Kawu) has quite rightly been up in arms, accusing the government of lacking goodwill during discussions on the crisis at the country’s and East Africa’s most important airport.

The workers want the government to stop implementing the hurried, secretive Adani deal. For a country in which the courts have held in a number of recent rulings that public participation must be carried out in arriving at decisions that directly or indirectly affect the people, the airport workers, who are key stakeholders, appear not to have been involved in the ceding of this critical and valuable national asset to the foreign firm.

So far, the government has only revealed that the Indian private firm will upgrade the airport by constructing a second runway and building a new passenger terminal. This is nearly all the material information that has been revealed with regard to the 30-year build-operate-transfer (BOT) contract.

Of major concern to the Kenyan workers, and their union leaders, however, is the increasing number of strangers spotted around the airport, who are said to be Adani’s employees taking stock of Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) assets. They are allegedly often accompanied by KAA managers and security personnel. The KAA workers fear that their jobs may be at stake.

Unexplained movements

They have demanded that these secretive and unexplained movements by strangers at the airport be stopped immediately. They also want full disclosure of the details of the government’s deal with Adani Enterprises.

To fully resolve the dispute and end the crisis, it is important that the government should come clean on the Adani deal. A crucial question that is begging for answers is, why the single-sourcing for privatisation of such a strategic national asset? Why wouldn’t the government adhere to the principles of transparency and accountability required of it by the Constitution in the management of public resources? The law requires that contracts that the government signs with foreign countries, organisations and even donors on behalf of the Kenyan people are made public. 

Why the bulldozing of this particular deal at a time when there is increased clamour for full disclosure of contracts that add to the public debt load?

The disruption yesterday at Kenyan airports caused a huge inconvenience to travellers who use this strategic hub to get around the world.

As airlines counted their losses caused by the disruption of services at key airports, businesses were also adversely affected.
Though normal operations are expected to resume, this matter is far from over. Indeed, the workers’ union stated that agreeing to return to work does not mean that they are happy with the Adani deal.

Transport Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir promised that the Adani deal details will be tabled in court for public scrutiny. Already, two key organisations, the Kenya Human Rights Commission and the Law Society of Kenya have challenged it in court. They have opposed the leasing to the Indian conglomerate what they describe as a strategic and profitable national asset. They are also convinced that the Sh238 billion required to revamp the JKIA can be raised locally to avoid leasing out the strategic airport for three decades.

It is important that all government contracts, including public debts, are transparently entered into only after being fully and transparently scrutinised. The days of opaque government deals signed by a few crooked people are long gone. The veil of secrecy around public contracts must be lifted to ensure value for present and future Kenyan generations.