Murkomen Turns To Police, Claims Sabotage & Coverup In JKIA Power Blackout
Murkomen underscored that he has been spearheading efforts to progressively address various problems impacting the country's largest airport.
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Transport Cabinet Secretary (CS) Kipchumba Murkomen has announced that he has formally requested the National Police Service (NPS) to investigate possible sabotage and coverups due to the frequent power blackouts at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi.
In a statement, Murkomen on Sunday evening, December 10 revealed that despite the power blackout that swept across most parts of the country, a changeover to the standby generators ensured that power was restored immediately to most parts of JKIA, thus avoiding another embarrassing incident.
"Regrettably, supply did not immediately resume at terminals 1A and 1E. In the wake of tonight's incident, I led a team composed of PS Transport, Kenya Airports Authority Board Chairman and Managing Director among other KAA officials to assess the situation at the airport," he stated in part.
Power blackout at JKIA on December 10, 2023. /LIZAH MUTUKU
Murkomen underscored that he has been spearheading efforts to progressively address various problems impacting the country's largest airport.
"Considering the frequency of the power disruption, and taking into account the fact that JKIA is a facility of strategic national importance, we are making a formal request to the National Police Service to investigate possible acts of sabotage and coverup," he added.
In the meantime, Murkomen assured that the cleanup of the mess at JKIA continues, noting that the KAA Board is under strict instructions to carry on with the reform agenda and the management to implement, as directed, the report of the technical committee that he recently constituted.
His statement came moments after the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) explained that the power blackout which paralysed systems at JKIA in Nairobi had affected Terminals 1A and 1E.
"Over the past week, our generator system at JKIA has undergone rigorous testing to ensure continuous and reliable power supply. Despite these efforts, during tonight's power outage, two of our four generators, specifically those serving Terminals IA and IE, failed to immediately activate," KAA explained the cause of JKIA's blackout.
"We would like to assure the public that the rest of the airport, including the JKIA Tower and Runway, remained fully operational and was not impacted by this incident."
The airport authority added that its technical team responded swiftly to the situation, and quickly rectified the fault, restoring power fully to the affected terminals.
"In our commitment to service excellence and operational reliability, we have initiated a comprehensive investigation to identify the root cause of the generator failure," KAA further announced.
Most parts of the country were on Sunday evening plunged into darkness as a result of the blackout, which Kenya Power had attributed to a faulty system.
The monopoly firm had issued an update stating that the restoration of power supply across the country is ongoing.
"Several areas in Nairobi City and its environs are already back on electricity supply. These include parts of Ruaraka, Embakasi, JKIA, Parklands, Donholm, Umoja, Huruma, Westlands, Syokimau and Dandora. Sections of Kisumu, Busia and Siaya are also back on supply.
"We are working to restore normal supply to all areas as soon as possible. We apologise to all our customers for the inconvenience caused by the outage," stated Kenya Power.
However, at midnight, Kenyans reported being hit with a second successive blackout. Kenya Power was yet to issue a statement on the same by the time of publishing this article.
