The proposed 30-year lease of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport by the Indian multinational firm Adani Group smacks of mischief and wheeler-dealing.
What started off as minor grumbling among a few JKIA employees has now morphed into a major aviation crisis that saw total paralysis of operations at East and Central Africa’s transport hub.
Members of the Kenya Airport Workers Union downed their tools over the government’s lack of transparency, accountability and full disclosure of the $1.85 billion deal between it and Adani.
The workers also claim that the secretly executed deal is “unaffordable, threatens job losses, exposes the public disproportionately to fiscal risk, and offers no value for money to the taxpayer”.
This comes barely a day after the High Court suspended the deal following a petition by the Law Society of Kenya (LSK), Kenya Human Rights Commission and a coalition of civil society organisations that accuse some individuals in the Kenya Kwanza administration of allegedly pushing ahead with the deal for selfish gains.
Though the deal has sparked public outrage since it became public over lack of transparency, the long-time implications of the lease and its potential consequences, President William Ruto’s government has shown unbridled determination to push it through at all costs.
Various stakeholders, including airport workers, have been asking for more details about the deal, mainly the plans for cargo freight, infrastructure improvement to be done and how the current huge private-sector investments at JKIA will be protected, but he information has not been forthcoming.
Even a directive from the National Assembly’s Committee on Transport and Infrastructure to the government to stop engaging with Adani met deaf ears.
The government has been reluctant to respond to claims that the deal could lead to an Adani monopoly over local airports.
It is not only in Kenya that a deal linked to Adani has been shrouded in controversy. In Sri Lanka, the conglomerate’s renewable energy projects in Mannar district were embroiled in a political storm, leading to widespread protests against the government in 2022.
The Bangladeshi government’s contract to purchase power from Adani’s coal plant in Jharkhand, for instance, became a flashpoint in the protests that led to PM Sheikh Hasina’s resignation and escape to India early last month.
The merits and demerits aside, the government needs to come clean on Adani’s takeover of JKIA and address all the concerns raised.
