NAIROBI (Reuters) – The biggest union of Kenya’s aviation workers plans to go on strike on Wednesday to protest against a proposed deal for India’s Adani Group to lease the country’s main airport for 30 years in exchange for expanding it, a union official said on Tuesday.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
Kenya’s government has said the airport is operating above capacity and needs modernising but that it is not for sale and that no decision has been made on whether to proceed with what it calls a proposed public-private partnership to upgrade the site.
It said in July that Adani’s offer was being reviewed. If a deal is agreed, the government said there would be safeguards to ensure Kenya’s national interests are protected.
KEY QUOTE
“The strike starts at midnight,” Moss Ndiema, secretary general of the Kenya Aviation Workers Union, which represents airport workers, said in a text message to Reuters.
CONTEXT
On Monday, a Kenyan court temporarily blocked the proposed deal for Adani Group to lease the country’s main airport for 30 years in exchange for expanding it.
In August, the aviation workers’ union said the proposed agreement, first announced in July, would lead to job losses and bring in non-Kenyan workers.
WHAT’S NEXT
The strike would likely affect operations of flights into and out of Nairobi’s main Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Kenya television channel Citizen Television reported that the workers had already started a go-slow at the main airport late on Tuesday.
THE RESPONSE
Spokespeople at the Kenya Airports Authority, which runs airports countrywide, were not immediately available to comment on the planned strike.
(Reporting by Humphrey Malalo; writing by George Obulutsa; editing by Sandra Maler)
