Opinion
With The Incompetent Team in Place, Kicking Out Non-Performing Ngunze is Not Enough to Fix Problems At KQ
By Nicholas Olambo
Kenya Airways Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Mbuvi Ngunze has announced that he will retire in the first quarter of 2017. Ngunze who joined the airline in June 2014 has been facing a solid push from the Kenya Airline Pilots Association for his dismal performance. The association was also pushed for riddance of his incompetent team and former Chairman Dennis Awori.
Awori resigned in October before the half year performance updates, and his position has since been taken by the former Safaricom boss Michael Joseph. Mr. Joseph welcomed Ngunze’s resignation with respect and promised to have his successor in the next three months alongside the board and the nominations committee.
The loss-making airline faced several hitches and forced flight delays that Ngunze’s incompetent team could not fix. The soft-spoken Exec has nothing to the right home; he was brought in to save a collapsing giant airline, but he failed terribly to get the airline from its financial woes. But was the problem Ngunze or his management skills?
I doubt if you ask me. African governments got it all wrong after kicking out their colonial masters. Nearly every African nation was left was with a railway line that they failed to manage or improve by building even an inch after several decades. We kicked out white settlers, reclaimed our lands but used them to produce what we don’t consume.
Every African government got into the airline business, making massive losses and using taxpayer’s money to bail out these airlines that continue to make more losses. Heads must roll, it’s the same poor management disease that brought that railway to its knees that is now killing the airline.
KQ has been in the death bed for a minute, and signs of recovery are not visible. Appointing Michael Joseph to chair the board and kicking out stressed Ngunze are not enough. The airline sold its milk cow, Boeing 777 and called it a good move. It also sold its coveted prime landing slot to Oman Air for Shs. 7.5 billion in March and its still stuck in its financial crisis. A complete turnaround is necessary.
Kenya Insights allows guest blogging, if you want to be published on Kenya’s most authoritative and accurate blog, have an expose, news TIPS, story angles, human interest stories, drop us an email on [email protected] or via Telegram
KNH ON THE BRINK: How Corruption, Revenue Plunder and State Neglect Are Destroying Kenya’s Flagship Hospital
Receivers In TransCentury Sh6B KRA Tax Arrears Are Biased And Must Be Removed, COFEK Claims
The Man Behind the Badge: How Prof. Erastus Kanga Turned Kenya’s Premier Wildlife Agency into a Theatre of Corruption, Fear and Impunity
How Little Known KwikBet Leveraged Stolen Kenyans Data To Build Its Empire
The Jaffer’s : How The Fuel Scandal Exposed The Sons Who Poisoned Kenya’s Fuel Tanks
THE FIXER IN THE FILE ROOM: How Parliamentary Health Committee Clerk Adan Gindicha Cleared Mediheal Hospital of Organ Harvesting Claims Despite Mounting Evidence
Nairobi Freezes Binance Accounts in Sweeping Anti-Fraud Crackdown as Global Scandal Record Haunts World’s Largest Crypto Exchange
EXCLUSIVE: Odibets Bought Stolen Data From Millions Of Kenyans
Taiwan President Cancels Trip After African Countries Close Airspace
Murkomen, Sudi and MP Fingered In Sh20 Billion Runda Land Grab
Forged Legacy: How Kaplan and Stratton’s Peter Gachuhi Is Accused of Faking a Top AG’s Will as State Claims Damning Evidence
Sold And Abandoned: How Diageo and Asahi Are Locking Kenya’s EABL Minority Shareholders Out Of East Africa’s Biggest Corporate Heist
Inside Details Of Sh78 Billion Fraud in KPC’s Mombasa-Nairobi Line 5 Pipeline Project That Has Continued To Bleed The Country
Poison at the Pump: How Kenya’s Fuel Marking System May Be Exposing Millions to Cancer-Causing Chemicals
THE HANDSHAKE THAT BECAME A NOOSE: How Tuju’s Alleged Intimate Access to EADB’s Yeda Apopo Produced a Sh294 Million Deal With No Written Contract, and Why That Trust Destroyed an Empire
How Firm Linked To Mombasa Tycoon Jaffer Was Allowed To Import Fuel At Bloated Price And Set To Make Billions In Profits From Iranian War Crisis In Kenya
THE ZAKHEM-ECOBANK MACHINE: How Kenya’s Courts Were Weaponised to Drain a State Corporation of Over KES 78 Billion
The Lawyer at the Centre of Kenya’s State Machine: Eric Gumbo, the AG’s Bypassed Office, and the Half-Billion-Shilling Question
The Teflon Company: How Gulf Energy’s Insiders Built Billions on Kenya’s Fuel, and Walked Away Clean
The Debt They Would Not Pay: How Standard Group Ducked Sh50 Million In Regulatory Fee For Years, Then Called It A Witch-Hunt
-
Business1 week agoKenyan Motorists Stare At Possible Engine Damage And Heavy Losses As Report Confirms Substandard Fuel In Circulation
-
Business1 week agoTHE FUEL CABAL: How Mohamed Jaffer, a KPC Insider, and a Ministry Official Are Alleged to Have Manufactured Kenya’s Worst Petroleum Crisis in Three Years, While Kenyans Burned
-
Business1 week agoGetting Away With It: How Kenya’s Most Politically Connected Fuel Company Gulf Energy Is Pocketing Billions While Rival Firms Face Public Wrath
-
Business2 weeks agoHow Safaricom Could Sell You Out To KRA
-
News2 weeks agoThe Kewota Racket: How Kenya’s Female Teachers Are Being Bled Dry
-
Business1 week agoSugar Empire in the Dock: How Kibos’s Mombasa Refinery Landed 1,481 Phantom Tonnes at the Port — and Why Nine Government Agencies Are Now Watching Its Every Move
-
Business6 days agoTotalEnergies Moves to Sue TikToker for Sh10 Million Over Contaminated Fuel Claim as Kenya’s Petroleum Sector Burns
-
Business2 weeks agoA Case That Refuses To Die: EABL Stake Sale Faces Fresh Challenge After Temporary Reprieve