The Government of Kenya has decided to nationalize the national airline Kenya Airways.
The news, which had been in the air for some time and seemed to be supported by the announced resignation of the current General Manager Sebastian Mikosz, who will leave office at the end of the year, was confirmed by the Deputy Minister of Transport Esther Koimett in Parliament, during a meeting regarding the debt situation of the company.
Koimett announced that the only way to get Kenya Airways back on track is to reach an agreement with the company's foreign shareholders, Air France and KLM, to repay with a 10-year repayment plan the shares that belong to them and that represent the majority of the total, and nationalize the company.
The historic CEO of Safaricom Michael Joseph, inventor of Mpesa, called as a consultant at the bedside of the company has dictated the line warning that if within six months there is no change of course there could be great dangers for its management.
This decision was made by trying to imitate the example of Ethiopian Airlines, which for the most part belongs to the Ethiopian government and is now the airline of reference of the continent and one of the few to have the balance sheets in surplus. Companies that have attempted privatisation in Africa, for one reason or another, have not benefited. Southafrican Airways is currently facing very hard strikes, while two airlines that have been dormant for some time, Tanzanian Air and Uganda Airways, after having been put back on their feet by their respective governments, are launching recovery and expansion plans. So now he hopes to do Kenya Airways, which was once called "the pride of Africa" and which today sails in waters that say stormy is a euphemism.