Tassia plan flawed, NSSF now admits

The National Social Security Fund has admitted that there was a mistake in the manner in which a contract for the Tassia II infrastructure project was awarded.

NSSF acting managing trustee Richard Lang’at said the fund should have first collected money from owners of the plots before awarding the Sh5 billion contract to a Chinese firm.

Appearing before the Public Investments Committee yesterday, Mr Lang’at said they would have to renegotiate with China Jiangxi, which was to start the construction of infrastructure.

“The lapse which I can see here is we should have engaged plot owners much earlier than what we are going to do now because two months are almost gone. We only have four months,” he said.

PIC members led by vice chairman Kimani Ichung’wa argued that without the money collected from the plot owners, NSSF broke the law by signing the contract with China Jiangxi yet they did not have the funds for the job.

NSSF will by next week start talking to plot owners in Tassia to collect the money to fund the construction of roads, water and sewerage services in the estate.

Among those who would be required to contribute is ODM nominated MP Oburu Oginga, who informed his colleagues in the PIC that he owns a plot in Tassia.

Mr Lang’at said the NSSF board met on March 10 and gave the management the greenlight to restart the job awarded to China Jiangxi but suspended after questions were raised about it.

Resolved

He said they had resolved to start only after the 5,500 plot owners have contributed the Sh920,000 each needed to raise the Sh5 billion needed for the job.

“We’ll engage the contractor and see how best we can restart the contract to take cognisance of the fact that we are yet to collect these monies,” said Mr Lang’at.

Mr Lang’at was speaking after Labour Cabinet Secretary Kazungu Kambi told the MPs he stopped intervening after realising he did not have the legal power to suspend the project.