By Noel Wandera
A steering committee to oversee the Nationalisation of Kenya Airways (KQ) has been formed.
The airline’s Chairman Michael Joseph, who declined to divulge neither the names of committee members nor a definitive date of the re-nationalisation process said he preferred an independent board, able to run the airline in a commercial manner.
“Yes, a steering committee has been formed to turn into legislation, the proposals to re-nationalise KQ. We are helping to draft the laws,” he said on the sidelines of a one day International Air Transport Association (IATA) regional workshop in Nairobi yesterday.
He said they did not want a situation where the airline is renationalised, only to become a department of government with a board of directors loaded by friends of politicians.
Joseph said renationalisation would enable KQ to counter competition from established and emerging airlines including Ethiopia Airlines, Rwanda Airlines and Uganda Airlines which are also nationalised.
“It is not what we want, but what we must do to become competitive,” he said.
In July, parliament voted to renationalise the loss making airline by buying out minority shareholders, including Air France – KLM’s 7.8 per cent stake, and converting shares held by banks into Treasury bonds in an exercise that would take at least 21 months.
The government holds a 48.9 per cent stake in the airline. It was privatised in 1986, but sank into debt and loses in 2014.
