Fury over senators' wasted US trip to get manifest for crashed Ethiopian airliner

Austerity, no unnecessary spending or extravagance — those are orders more honoured in the breach than the observance.

The latest example: A Senate committee travelled all the way to Seattle, Washington State, US, to look for the passenger manifest.

Which flight? The Ethiopian airliner that crashed on March 10, 2019, shortly after take-off from Addis Ababa.

Seattle is the headquarters of Boeing Aerospace Company, maker of the airliner.

They could have emailed the airline or gone to Addis Ababa, where the flight originated. But they went to Seattle in 2019.

The Senate was outraged on learning this. More so because the report that was tabled on Tuesday contained no findings or recommendations.

Key questions are unanswered. Did all nine members of the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee travel? Their names? 

When did they travel and how long did they stay? What was the cost to the Kenyan taxpayers? What essential information did they glean?

The committee promised to provide the information.

The revelation emerged in the Senate chambers  when the committee tabled a report on its enquiry into the plight of the families of the 32 Kenyan victims. All 149 passengers and eight crew were killed.

The Justice committee is chaired by Nyamira Senator Okong'o Omogeni. He did not go on the trip that was arranged by his predecessor.

The panel did not make any findings or recommendations, triggering fierce reactions from senators and Speaker Kenneth Lusaka.

“You cannot travel to Seattle and hold all these meetings with all these people and come out with zero findings and zero recommendation on a petition as important as this one,” Kitui Senator Enoch Wambua said.

“Then, in fact, the committee lacks the moral authority to hold the government to account for their silence in providing justice to these people. This is a report that should be rejected in total,” he added.

Senators Moses Wetang'ula (Bungoma), George Khaniri (Vihiga) and Petronilla Were (nominated) also questioned the rationale behind the empty report.

“Is it in order for the committee to spend public money to travel to Seattle in the US, the headquarters of Boeing, and then bring no findings? This is a serious matter,” Wetang'ula said.

But Omogeni said the mandate of the committee was limited to the allegations by the petitioners that the government had failed to process death certificates of the crash victims.

“What we sought from the ministry was why they had not processed death certificates. When the ministry came before my committee, they said we received the petition before they processed the certificates.

“They tabled evidence that they had since produced death certificates to all the victims except four where there were wrangles between victims. With tremendous respect to my colleagues, what was I to recommend again?” Omogeni asked. 

He said the issue of compensation was not among the mandates of the committee; clarifying compensation of the families was a private contractual matter between the families, the airline and the aircraft manufacturer.

In July last year, families of the 32 Kenyans who perished petitioned the Senate seeking intervention to access counselling services and push the government to swiftly issuance of death certificates.

“The families have agonised to get death certificates to no avail yet this role falls under the purview of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs owing to the fact that the crash occurred in a foreign country,” the petition read.

Omogeni’s explanation sparked further reactions. Senators questioned the logic behind the committee's trip to the US, yet it only wanted a list of Kenyans who perished.

“I want to know why the committee has to take a trip to Seattle to establish if death certificates were issued in Kenya or not,” Khaniri said.

“If the petitioners were demanding that they needed counseling because of tremours and death certificates because of compensation, why did they (committee) go to Seattle?” Wetang'ula asked.

“Because what they needed was a passenger manifest. There is no evidence that they went to Addis where the flight originated. That is where they could have gotten the manifest or copies.

“They will then be able to tell us which families were still traumatised and needed help. This information was definitely not available in Seattle in the US. It’s found in Kenya and Addis Ababa,” Wetang'ula said.

Lusaka said, “That was a very serious decision that you made but then it turned out it was an irrelevant tour. You spent public funds to go and look for something which cannot be found there, where you went. You may need to carry the cross at some point.”

Clearly pressed, Omogeni said he was not the chair of the committee at the time the panel travelled and pleaded with the speaker to allow his predecessor, Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei, to explain the reason behind the trip.

“I have never been to Seattle and I want the people of Nyamira to know that I did not go to Seattle to look for a manifest which can be found in Ethiopia. As a senior counsel, I have a name and a reputation to protect.

“Let the record be very clear that the trip to Seattle was made by my predecessor, former chair of the committee. He is in the house. I don’t want to carry that burden,” he said.

Cherargei sought more time to check records and consult the secretariat to understand why the committee made the trip.

“Specially, we went to follow up on the issue of compensation to the victims. So, I request your indulgence to respond comprehensively after I have dusted off my notes that I took while chair of JLAC,” he pleaded.

The speaker granted the request.

(Edited by V. Graham)