Kenya Airports Authority has issued a flat denial of reports that the Adani Group has been quietly re-engaged in the expansion of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, declaring the original privately initiated proposal formally cancelled with no ongoing discussions with the conglomerate or any of its affiliates. The statement, released on March 3, 2026, came hours after The Standard reported that senior government officials were seeking legal pathways to bring Adani back into the project through the back door.
- KAA’s statement confirmed that the privately initiated proposal between the authority and the Adani Group has been formally cancelled, and there are no current discussions with the group or any of its affiliates regarding JKIA
- The authority stated that the JKIA modernisation and expansion programme is now a Government of Kenya funded initiative, implemented strictly in accordance with public procurement laws and established public sector procedures
- KAA Acting Managing Director Mohamud Gedi pledged that the authority would maintain open communication with stakeholders and keep the public regularly updated on all engagements
- On the same day as KAA’s denial, the State Department for Aviation and Aerospace Development published a new tender inviting sealed bids for the Design and Build contract for JKIA’s modernisation, with a mandatory pre-bid site visit scheduled for April 8 and 9 and bids due at Transcom House by April 23, 2026
- The new government-funded plan targets an expansion of JKIA’s capacity from 7.5 million to 12 million passengers annually, with a new X-shaped passenger terminal designed initially for 10 million passengers and an ultimate capacity of 15 million
- A long-overdue second runway stretching 4.8 kilometres is scheduled for completion by June 2027, which would allow simultaneous take-offs and landings and eliminate JKIA’s historic single-runway vulnerability
- JKIA handled approximately 8.6 million passengers in 2025, already exceeding its original design capacity of 7.5 million, making the expansion urgent
- The original Adani deal, worth approximately Sh258 billion, was cancelled by President William Ruto in November 2024 after public protests and legal challenges over transparency, including an #OccupyJKIA movement; Adani founder Gautam Adani had separately been charged by US prosecutors with allegedly orchestrating a Ksh32.5 billion bribery scheme
- Opposition members cited by The Standard claimed senior state officers were hunting for legal loopholes to reintroduce Adani, while analysts noted that the blueprint driving the new tender draws heavily on feasibility studies conducted during the aborted Adani negotiations
The timing of KAA’s denial alongside the new tender publication puts the government in a position it has been before with this project: insisting on transparency while moving faster than public trust can keep pace. The original Adani proposal was cleared by KAA in just 17 days after submission in March 2024, bypassing competitive bidding entirely and sidelining a rival proposal from Argentina’s Corporación América Airports. Civil society groups, aviation workers and the Law Society of Kenya had all challenged that process, arguing JKIA is too strategically important and too profitable a national asset to be handed to a single bidder without open competition. KAA has now corrected the process by going to public tender. What remains an open question is whether the new Design and Build framework genuinely resets the playing field or whether the Adani-era feasibility work, which shaped the current expansion blueprint, effectively pre-qualifies familiar specifications that favour familiar bidders. The High Court is scheduled to hear the original petition challenging the Adani process on May 6, 2026, meaning judicial scrutiny of how the airport deal was handled in the first place will continue running in parallel with the new procurement.
The Bigger Picture: JKIA is not simply Kenya’s busiest airport. It handled 8.6 million passengers last year through infrastructure designed for 7.5 million, and it serves as East Africa’s primary aviation hub connecting the region to long-haul routes. Every year of delay on the expansion compounds that pressure. The government is right to move forward through competitive public tender and right to fund the project from public resources rather than through a 30-year operational concession that would have transferred revenue control to a private conglomerate. KAA’s same-day denial and tender release is a credible signal that procurement discipline is now in place. The harder test comes in April when bids are opened. If the Design and Build contract is awarded transparently, through a process that can withstand the scrutiny of the courts still examining the old deal, Kenya will have turned one of its most damaging infrastructure controversies into a governance case study. If it is not, the protests that grounded JKIA in 2024 will have a second chapter.
Source: Ghanamma | Kenyans.co.ke | Kenya Times
