Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen has revealed that passengers alighting from planes arriving at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) walked through rain due to the airport's security plans.
Appearing before the Senate on Wednesday, the CS further indicated that President William Ruto who jetted in from a working trip in Germany and France was also forced to walk through the rain shielded with umbrellas.
He noted that the passengers walked approximately 100 meters to their designated terminal because all arriving planes had their designated parking slots which he insisted could not be changed due to the ongoing rains.
"The airport dropping areas are determined by security plans within the airport. I just landed at JKIA this morning and like many others including our President were dropped far from JKIA terminal and we had to walk through the rain with umbrellas to the terminal itself," he explained.
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"Nothing just changes because of the rain. Airplanes are designated where they park."
To solve the shortage at the airport, however, Murkomen revealed that plans to put up another terminal were in high gear to supplement the existing ones.
He revealed that an advertisement will be put out in mid-January next year and construction, under a public-private partnership model, completed in a span of three years.
"Our JKIA infrastructure is a bit constrained to accommodate all the airlines and to accommodate all the packing that we require," he added.
Initially, there was a tussle in Parliament after the CS was accused of failing to answer the concerns raised by Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna.
The Senator had argued that being forced to walk through the rain was a concerning development since the State was aware of the heavy rains well in advance.
JKIA, ranked among the busiest airports in Africa, has only two terminals.
Terminals 1A, 1B, 1C, and 1E serve international arrivals while 1D serves domestic passengers.
Terminal 2 is used by low-cost carriers.
