Thread by @mmnjug

Pressure to have troubled national carrier @KenyaAirways run JKIA has continued to elicit mixed reactions with some stakeholders now reading powerful business hands pushing for the takeover of the lucrative airport.

The latest effort to stabilise @KenyaAirways has provoked its own turbulence with questions emerging on just who wants KQ in charge of the country’s largest aviation facility and for what reason.

This week @KenyaAirports has twice been to parliament to explain the proposed concession scheme that will see KQ operate, maintain and develop JKIA according to the Privately Initiated Investment Proposal (PIIP) it submitted in December 2018.

.@KenyaAirports which manages six airports and several airstrips, had outlined its own strategic expansion plan which would see the setting up of new aviation facilities across the country, plans that pundits argue may never take off under the struggling @KenyaAirways

.@KenyaAirways is insolvent. It will not add value to JKIA. If at all there is any intention for the public good, it should be @KenyaAirports to run KQ. KQ problems will not be solved by having access to an already profit making airport.

JKIA is @KenyaAirports' single largest source of revenue with over 40 passenger airlines and 25 cargo airlines operating there which also makes it the busiest airport in East Africa.

In the PIIP, @KenyaAirways PLC has proposed to form a special purpose vehicle (SPV) specifically dedicated to operating, managing and developing JKIA for a period of 30 years.

An SPV is a subsidiary of a company which is protected from the parent company’s financial risk.

SPVs were used by @KenyaAirways to buy aircraft directly from manufacturers and then lease them to KQ in what was alleged as an insider deal during the former managing director Titus Naikuni’s term.

Naikuni has since denied knowing the names of the directors of two offshore companies incorporated by the airline’s lenders as part of a financing agreement to purchase 10 Embraer ERJ-190 from South America.

The SPV firms — Samburu Limited and Amboseli Limited — based in Cayman Islands, remain transitory owners of the aircraft until the loans are fully paid to the lenders, another strategic blunder @KenyaAirways is said to have clipped its own wings with.

Although GoK now owns significant shares in @KenyaAirways after the recent debt restructuring plan, pundits believe there is some hidden influence elsewhere pushing @KenyaAirways to handover JKIA to the airline.

.@KenyaTreasury and 10 local banks were expected to control 87% of @KenyaAirways under the national carrier’s debt restructuring plan after it was agreed that the Sh44.2B loans would be converted to equity in November 2017.

Bank’s stake at KQ has its own line of conspiracy theory. With their debt standing at Sh23B mergers which have lately been taking place among are said to be gathering a different set of powerful owners of the carrier, with allegations of conflicting interest in the push for JKIA

The merger between @CBA_Group_ and @nicbankkenya is said to be a scale changer in the ownership structure. The new entity set to acquire @JamiiBoraBank which had agreed to have its dues settled by KQ gradually will be a major player with almost 25% of the debt KQ owes.

The group MD of @CBA_Group_ is Isaac Awuondo. He is also the chairman of @KenyaAirports. Now do your maths.....

😂

French firms said to have been outraged by the deal to expand JKIA which was given to Chinese before it was revoked are said to have offered to build, operate and hand over the Terminal, after 30 years. The same period is what KQ is now seeking to run the airport through the SPV.

Of banks, vested interests, wheeler dealers and buccaneers in @KenyaAirways plan to run @KenyaAirports' JKIA for 30yrs through SPVs bit.ly/2Tbzfwk