Sh327bn railway contract attracted biggest interest
With its value of Sh327 billion and additional expenses bringing the cost to Sh447 billion, the contract for construction of the standard gauge railway drew the biggest interest from MPs.
With separate but similar questions, Transport, Public Works and Housing, and Public Investments committees conducted much-publicised investigations and eventually recommended that the Executive proceeds with the tender.
Other projects, albeit of much lower value, have followed: the security surveillance project by Safaricom, the pipeline deal given to Zakhem International and the contract for the review of design and overseeing construction of a railway by Chinese firm The Third Railway Survey and Group, whose local partners are Edon and Apec consultants.
And recently, the National Security and Administration Committee ordered the National Police Service Commission to postpone reporting of police recruits for training.
The commission complied and moved the reporting date to October 3.
But investigations into the railway contract awarded to the Chinese consortium could complicate matters.
Cabinet Secretary Michael Kamau told the PIC that the group had started work.
“The order to commence has already been given. We can look at (ways of) administratively telling them how to go about things. Legally, we can’t tell them to stop,” said Mr Kamau.
