NewsCS Macharia Cornered on Live TV Over Covid-19 Flight...

CS Macharia Cornered on Live TV Over Covid-19 Flight Ban Claims [VIDEO]

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On Tuesday evening, April 7, Citizen TV news anchor Waihiga Mwaura put Transport CS James Macharia on the spot in a hard-hitting interview over the government’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

The news anchor sought to find out why it took the government long before international flights were banned in Kenya.

“If we had banned international flights earlier, might we have had fewer Covid-19 cases?” Waihiga posed.

Transport and Infrastructure Cabinet Secretary James Macharia speaking at KICC on March 17, 2016.

Daily Nation

Macharia in his response did not provide a straight answer but chose to recount the steps the government had taken rather than state whether an earlier ban on international flights would have prevented the spread of the disease into the country.

“Well, you know Waihiga that we were among the first countries to ban the flights, we actually took a decision where we said that all passengers from Covid-19 infected countries would not come to this country.

“Before then, we had agreed with Kenya Airways that they would stop flying to China. We had also agreed with China Southern Airlines but decisions came very quickly because, as we realised the progression of the pandemic, we took very affirmative actions to ensure that we dealt with the emerging challenge,” the CS stated.

Unsatisfied with his answer, the Citizen TV news anchor asked Macharia why the government did not heed to numerous pleas by Kenyans to ban the flights in February.

“If you had banned them earlier, wouldn’t we have been talking about fewer cases today?” Waihiga posed.

In his reply, the CS noted that given the virus had been in the country for only 6 weeks, the government banned the flights at the right time.

“Decisions had to be made with the global picture in mind because this is not a pandemic that is only in Kenya and that is why even after we made the decisions, some countries still continued flying to the hot spots, long after Kenya had actually stopped doing so.

“That is why we had a challenge in evacuating some of our students in those countries. As we are speaking today,  we are discussing how to evacuate some of our students in Latin America, who are in the shipping industry,” the CS noted.

Waihiga continued to prod the cabinet secretary to directly answer the question that many Kenyans believed the country had taken too long to ban flights from Covid-19 hotspots. 

“If we banned the flights earlier, is it possible we would have fewer [Covid-19] numbers today?” he repeated as the CS concluded by stating, “We did not ban flights, we banned passengers from those countries. Globally, we were among the first to act.”

His answers did not please a section of Kenyans who expressed their disappointment on social media.

“Let no one lie under our noses that Kenya was among the first to ban international flights, they waited until we received patient 001,” Richard Kwirikia commented.

“CS Macharia called the KQ employee Gire Ali a criminal for telling us about the flight full of Chinese from China, remind him that power comes and goes,” Barrack Otieno weighed in.

“It’s so painful that Macharia is lying to Kenyans…the international flights in Kenya were banned 3 weeks ago. Was that really early enough. He owes Kenyans an apology for risking the lives of 47million  Kenyans,” Rogers stated.

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