‘JKIA roof leakage lasted only 30 minutes': Murkomen says situation exaggerated

Speaking on Citizen TV’s 'The Explainer' show on Tuesday night, the CS claimed Kenyans were just being ‘hyperbolic’ about the whole occurrence after a video showing the mess at the airport surfaced last week.

He termed the situation a "small thing" saying it only lasted for about 20 to 30 minutes before it was addressed and had no impact on the airport’s general activities.

“People are being hyperbolic, this was just a small section where the water came in for about 20-30 minutes and it was sorted because as the construction is going on top, some of the infrastructure because it is old, gets affected, one pipe got affected and that is why it leaked,” Murkomen explained.

“I am not saying that we will not have a blackout of 10-20 minutes or that we will not have a leakage, it will happen. Those are small things that happen in any existing institution…It never interrupted any services in the airport. People were moved to continue being checked in the line as we continued fixing the water leakage.”

According to the CS, leakages and blackouts are not peculiar occurrences and they can happen any time at the facility.

He went on to term any infrastructural disruption of 20 minutes or one hour as a short time, opining that people should not make a big deal out of it.

“Do I deny there was a leaking roof? No. Does it happen in our homes, buildings, airports? Yes! Should there be a catastrophe, a leakage, a burst of a pipe, a blackout because something tripped or a massive flood, it should be the shortest time possible. If it is electricity, 20 to 30 minutes is definitely short... one hour would have been short,” he said.

At Terminal 1E, where leaking roofs disrupted services and inconvenienced passengers on Saturday, the CS attributed the problem to ageing infrastructure, assuring that a comprehensive overhaul of the tent structure was underway, with immediate measures including gutter installations to mitigate rainwater accumulation as well as a modern roof.

“On top of the existing airport, especially terminal 1C, we are constructing a new arrival terminal and have built a new roof,” he said.

“Amidst all the noise we are going to decommission Terminal 1E, the arrival tent that has been an embarrassment to all of us because it is a tent that was intended to serve for 2 to 3 years but has stayed for many years.”