CEO selection for top Kenya Airports Authority advances

With the shenanigans of outgoing CEO of the Kenya Airports Authority over the selection of his successors brought to an abrupt halt by a newly-assertive chairman and board of the Kenya Airports Authority, the selection process has advanced as it should have been in the first place. Information received from Nairobi now indicates that the board forwarded three names to the minister for transport, the appointing authority, after going through over 100 applications, before then short listing less than 10 of them for a final round of interviews.

It is understood that the three top candidates (it could not be established who of them scored best) are the CEO of the horticultural crops development authority, the CEO of the Nairobi water company, and the KAA manager for projects and engineering. The current deputy CEO of KAA was apparently nudged out narrowly and did not manage to be among the top three.

Predictably, sources opposed to the majority on the board were swift to throw doubts over the exercise, calling it rushed, and members of the parliamentary standing committee on transport have already vowed to investigate the actions of the board, likely incited by supporters of the outgoing CEO George Muhoho, whose family connections in Kenyan politics have a wide and influential reach.

The newly-appointed CEO will oversee multibillion Kenya shillings contracts, either already signed or in the pipeline to be signed, likely a strong reason to bring the right person with the correct political affiliations into the job, which ranks as one of the juiciest plums among the public sector top jobs in the country.