By Humphrey Malalo
NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenya’s main aviation union has announced it will call a strike starting next Monday against a planned contract with an Indian company to build the country’s biggest airport. The industrial action could lead to major disruptions at the East African transport hub.
The Kenya Aviation Workers Union, which represents airport employees, said the collective bargaining agreement announced last month with India’s Adani Airport Holdings would result in job losses and lead to the relocation of non-Kenyan workers.
In an announcement of a seven-day strike published on Monday, the government called on the government to call off the “illegal proposed sale of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) to India’s Adani Airport Holdings”.
The Kenyan government has stated that the airport is not for sale and that no decision has yet been made on whether to proceed with the planned public-private partnership to modernise the hub.
A spokesman for the Adani Group was not immediately available for comment.
Any strike could also cause significant disruption to the national airline, Kenya Airways.
“We will only reconsider our intention to take industrial action if the deal with Adani Airport Holdings Limited is completely abandoned,” said Kenya Aviation Workers Union General Secretary Moss Ndiema in the strike announcement.
He reiterated his call for the resignation of the entire board of the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA).
The KAA confirmed on Monday that it had received a strike notice. “We hope that a solution can be reached through negotiations,” said spokesman Elijah Miano.
The authority has announced that Adani will build a second runway at JKIA and modernize the passenger terminal.
Allan Kilavuka, CEO of Kenya Airways, did not respond to a request for comment.
The government said in a statement on the Adani proposal last month that the JKIA had exceeded its capacity of 7.5 million passengers a year and needed urgent improvements, citing incidents such as leaky roofs that had caused “international embarrassment”.
The statement said the modernization of the JKIA could cost two billion dollars, but that the government “can only finance it with difficulty due to the current tight budget situation.”
Adani’s offer is currently being reviewed, it said. If a deal is reached, there will be safeguards to protect Kenya’s national interests, the government said.
A youth-led protest movement across the country in June against planned tax increases also criticized the alleged lack of transparency surrounding the proposed Adani deal.
Last month, police denied protesters access to the JKIA, which they had planned to close.
(Reporting by Humphrey Malalo; additional reporting by Aditya Kalra and Dhwani Pandya; Writing by Hereward Holland and Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Alexander Winning and Andrew Heavens)
