KIMAIYO APPOINTED CHAIR OF KENYA AIRPORT AUTHORITY PROMPTING INSTANT CONTROVERSY
(Posted 14th January 2015)
While in transit via Nairobi did news reach, that the Kenya Airport Authority’s CEO Ms. Lucy Mbugua, has introduced the newly appointed Chairman of KAA, one David Kimaiyo. The news spread like wildfire among the aviation fraternity with phones running hot, and most comments expressing serious doubts about the wisdom of the appointing authority to bring a failure like Kimaiyo into such an important position.
The tenor of feedback received condemned the move saying that people who failed the nation the way Kimaiyo did should never be ‘recycled’ and that top positions like the chair of KAA should be given to professionals who understand the aviation sector and not people lacking merit.
‘Whatever dirty deal was struck when the chap was forced to retire, this is not the way to treat the aviation sector. We are not a recycling plant for failures. KAA has it tough enough right now with too many issues and to have a controversial chap like Kimaiyo as chairman only makes matters worse. He should retire to his village, full stop. Again our government shows no sign of sensitivity when imposing such a chap on us. As if the list of failures in government for tourism and conservation is not long enough already. This sucks!’ ranted a regular source while another added ‘The man lacks any knowledge or competence for that job. I hope someone sues the Minister for trying to offload Kimaiyo on KAA and not being qualified in any way. This smells of a dirty deal behind the scenes almost like rewarding him for resigning. Remember his utterances and his brainless directives? How he singlehandedly crippled Lamu’s tourism industry with that bad curfew? Someone must have taken that decision behind tinted windows!’.
(A cartoon in one of Kenya’s daily newspapers last year portraying the former Inspector General of Police as a clown following a particularly bad stretch of ‘directives chasing reversals chasing new directives chasing new reversals’)
No doubt will the social media time lines be full of comments very soon as the news spread across the country and while I will take off elsewhere I leave a no doubt raging Twitter and Facebook scene behind me where #KOT’s, aka Kenyans on Twitter, will voice their opinions aplenty, no holds barred, as after all he can no longer threaten them with arrest as he did in the past to outspoken critics of his ill-fated reign as Kenya’s top cop.
Sack Kimaiyo, reloaded, will no doubt soon gather momentum and one step astray, one ill spoken sentence, one expression of sectoral ignorance and therefore incompetence, will only pour fuel into the already blazing fire.
Watch this space for breaking and regular news from Eastern Africa’s aviation sector.
