TERRY HUTSON BROWN ONDEGO has been asked to remain as managing director of Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) ‘pending further communication’. There’s much interest and speculation among port people and shippers in Mombasa and Nairobi over the appointment of a new MD for the port authority, after Ondego’s term of office came to an end on 5 December. When he was first appointed in 1999 the KPA was grossly inefficient and generating large losses. By the end of the last fiscal year the KPA had turned things round and was showing a profit equivalent to US42 million. However Ondego has also been under a cloud. In January last year he was arrested on charges of theft and being involved in a smuggling ring, leading to his suspension along with a number of his senior managers. Although the charges were later dropped and Ondego reinstated, not all of the cloud has dissipated.
