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{
    "id": 613976,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/613976/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 49,
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    "content": "After that, both our Legal Affairs and Human Resources team and ourselves started looking at all kinds of international laws including the IFC Act, which is a domestic Act here, the extent to which that access to information policy – given our new Constitution – barred us, as the Senate, in discussing with them as an investor in our own local farm called Kenya Airways, to what extent these laws protected the IFC. We were not satisfied that they were thus protected. Therefore, one of our recommendations in this Report is for this House – particularly the lawyers in the House and necessary Committees – to look into the IFC Act and our relations with the IFC, now that it even wants to sit in the Board of Kenya Airways as an investor and, therefore, it should be subject to our laws. It is very important because it also touches on the sovereignty of the land. I will leave the issue of disputes with the pilots and crew to the Members of the sub-committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights. I see Sen. Hassan has come in, and I am sure he can handle that with dexterity. That is together with employment policies and matters personnel. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, let me now come to the issue of auditors. After we looked at the minutes of the Board since 1996 and management letters since then, we are really happy that the various auditors that have been working with Kenya Airways over time have, from time to time, raised the red flag over many issues. We met with auditors and they told us this, especially when we raised the management letters. It baffled us, after auditors had raised flags over the issues that are finally bedeviling the airline, why the management did not take action. You can see in our Report from pages 53 onwards, that we have documented here our meeting with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) which audited the accounts from 2011 to 2014; Deloitte & Touché which audited the accounts from 2004 to 2010; and KPMG which now took over this year. Therefore, we had more discussions with Deloitte and Touché and PwC. What we say in this Report is based on evidence. We were not out to speculate, whatsoever. When we analysed all these documents, we came to the following observation and I would like to read all our observations and recommendations. Although I did a summary of them, I would like to read them so that those in the House who may not have had the time to read the Report will be apprised of our observations. Our first observation was that the Committee was not persuaded that the Kenya Airways management understood the environment and market that they were operating in so as to maintain a competitive edge, make strategic decisions in key areas that required constant vigilance in studying global and regional markets and destinations; the vagaries or ups and downs in the oil industry, planning of routes and networks, leverage, partnerships with KLM and the Sky Team, sale of tickets and capitalizing the potential and dynamic of its own local and regional base where it had inherent hegemony in Kenya and Africa. We were not satisfied that they were well up to date on these issues and we have thus summarized them. Secondly, the Government of Kenya is represented in the board of directors by the Principal Secretaries for the National Treasury and Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure. The Government is under obligation to ensure that public funds are The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}