Senator Maanzo says CS Chirchir, Murkomen should resign

Speaking to KTN on Tuesday, Maanzo claimed that the outage posed a risk to planes landing at the airport. 

“Chirchir and Murkomen should resign, there is no way you will risk the lives of so many people, and still stay in the office,” Maanzo said.

“You know the frustration of flying all the way and especially when the lights just go off…you see when planes are on landing gear, they don’t peak they must land, so it risks big time lives and safety and security is one of the biggest issues.”

He suggested that every manager in respective airports should be cautious on the installation and maintenance of backup generators to ensure constant power supply. 

“One of the things that should be at the back of every manger of airports should be lives and should be lighting system as soon as the electricity goes off there must be diesel engines running immediately to ensure there is lighting,” Maanzo remarked.

The senator expressed disappointment over losses made by business people as a result of the blackout. 

On his part, Tana River senator Danson Mungatana said that the responsibility of the nationwide blackout should have laid on two ministers.

Mungatana opined that making leadership changes at JKIA and other airports was not enough.

"In more developed democracies like Japan when the trains fail to take off on time the ministers take responsibility and they leave cabinet,” Mungatana said.

“And I think it is not enough that one or two people who to me are smaller people are asked to leave their offices the big guys are still there and shifting blame to the smaller people.”

The National Assembly has summoned Chirchir and KPLC CEO Joseph Siror to appear in parliament on Thursday to give compelling reasons for the power outage.

Kenya Power attributed the major blackout to a "general system disturbance." Power was fully restored on Saturday.