Transport Cabinet Secretary (CS) Kipchumba Murkomen has stated that he did not fire anyone at JKIA over the national blackout because there was no one to send home.
Speaking during a media interview, the CS revealed that there was a human resource problem at the institution.
According to him, most of the managerial staff at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) were either in acting capacity or already at an advanced age.
“There is a problem of human resource at the airport. Many people of certain stature don’t want to work at the airport. Of the 11 GMs at the airport, 5 were acting. Many of them are at an advanced age.
“When you go to the department that is critical for these generators issues, there is very thin support in terms of support,” he stated.
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Murkomen on Sabotage at JKIA
Also, he noted that the former MD chose to leave because there was sabotage at the institution, and he was unable to continue dealing with the human resource problem.
“I had a candid discussion with the former Managing Director (MD), and he told me that the sabotage at the institution was too much.
“He could not continue dealing with the human resource challenge at the administration across the place. There were a number of people who were not doing their job and not pulling their weight.
Subsequently, the CS noted that the MD then decided to take an early leave from the position adding that his term was already coming to an end.
Why Kenyans Should Be Grateful
Addressing the failure of automatic generators at JKIA, Murkomen stated that Kenyans ought to give him credit for reducing the automation time from two hours to 20 minutes.
Further, he added that the problem had been accessed and the takeover time by the generators would be reduced to zero in case of another blackout.
“People say that I promised the country that it will not happen again, but you must give me credit to the fact that I reduced the madness from two hours to 20 or 30 minutes. It should take at most one minute, a good one should take about 5 seconds.
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“I failed to get to zero the way I wanted to my expectations, and we underestimated the depth of the problem.
Having walked down to that level I can now say that we will move this problem to zero and we are not going to have the same problem happening,” added Murkomen.
To provide a long-term solution to the problem, Murkomen stated that the government will now purchase two more generators to serve as backups in the event of a power outage.
He also stated that he is strengthening the human resource that is capable of providing long-term solutions to the mistakes at the international standard airport.
