Nairobi, April 8 -- Kenya Airways has contradicted its legal regulatory filings to the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), which showed that the National Treasury's shareholding in the national carrier had grown to a controlling stake of 50.1 percent, creating confusion on the airline's ownership structure.

In its filing to the CMA in February, KQ had excluded 142.1 million shares held under the Employee Share Ownership Scheme (Esop), reducing its volume of issued shares to 5.68 billion from the previous 5.82 billion while lifting the ownership of Treasury and other investors who did not trade their shares.

But in a twist, KQ on Wednesday claimed that the Esop was still in its share registry, and that the shareholding of the government in ...