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"speaker_name": "Mr. Waititu",
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"legal_name": "Ferdinand Ndung'u Waititu",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I rise to oppose this Motion. I want to start by stating clearly that the airport is in my constituency and 80 per cent of the people who work there are my constituents. Therefore, the welfare of the airport is of great concern to the people of Embakasi and the truth must be stated. Cap. 395 of the Laws of Kenya clearly states that the Minister has the right to appoint the Managing Director with the advice from the Board which has its own criteria of appointing someone. It is not a condition that they must do interviews. However, in this case, the Board decided to conduct an interview and 152 people turned up for the interview. The person who got 91 points and succeeded was an engineer who was employed in that parastatal 31 years ago as a junior engineer. He rose through the ranks to become the Chief Engineer of the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA). By any standard, that person is the right candidate for that job. If we want to practise fairness, we can only respect what was done in that parastatal. I wish this Committee could get the information from the ground. The staff of the KAA supports the new Managing Director because they strongly believe that he is the right person for that job. Recently, we witnessed the staff of the Nairobi Water Company go on strike in order to stand with their Managing Director. We do not want to see that happening at the KAA. It will be a big embarrassment to Parliamentarians because of interfering in the affairs of the KAA. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, perhaps, this Committee did not have all the information. They could backtrack on what they intend to do and remove that notion that maybe they are fighting this person because of ethnicity. Why should they refuse somebody who has an experience of 31 years and was employed as a junior engineer and rose through the ranks? Is it just because a certain name did not succeed?"
}