Team probes Sh10bn GDC deals
What you need to know:
- According to information handed over to the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, the company is being investigated over the procurement of drilling rigs, staff mismanagement and financial improprieties.
- Investigations into the company by two parliamentary committees — the Public Investments and the Energy, Information and Communication teams, have also been slow, and neither has presented a report on the company over the past two years.
- Moving a rig from one well to where another well is to be drilled involves disassembling it, transporting the components and then assembling it again at the destination.
The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission is investigating claims of corruption in awarding of tenders worth more than Sh10 billion by the Geothermal Development Company.
According to information handed over to the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, the company is being investigated over the procurement of drilling rigs, staff mismanagement and financial improprieties.
The State corporation is responsible for the development of geothermal resources.
At a meeting with the committee last Thursday, the heads of the anti-corruption agency were given up to March 30 to conclude their investigations and hand over the file to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Keriako Tobiko.
Mr Tobiko will then decide whether to charge anyone. The DPP attended the Thursday meeting.
“They told us they are analysing the evidence and should conclude and send the file to the DPP by March 30,” said the committee chairman, Mr Samuel Chepkong’a, after the closed-door meeting.
SINGLE-SOURCING
The commission is reported to be investigating claims that a Sh4 billion contract for top-holing, where a smaller rig than normal is used to drill the top of a well, was awarded after single-sourcing.
The Justice and Legal Affairs committee has been concerned that despite the concerns about corruption and the well-known cases the EACC says it is investigating, there has been little progress.
Investigations into the company by two parliamentary committees — the Public Investments and the Energy, Information and Communication teams, have also been slow, and neither has presented a report on the company over the past two years.
Documents presented to the committee also indicate concerns about the procurement of services to move the drilling rigs.
GDC was reported to have acquired trucks and cranes in 2010 and 2011 to move the rigs.
It later outsourced the job and in 2011, entered into a contract to provide the services at a cost of Sh19.5 million for each move.
The trucks and cranes it bought at Sh400 million were reportedly lying idle.
Moving a rig from one well to where another well is to be drilled involves disassembling it, transporting the components and then assembling it again at the destination.
The cost of contracts of that nature was reported to have increased from Sh19.5 million a move in 2011 to Sh42.7 million in 2012. Last year, Kenya Electricity Generating Company (Kengen) procured a similar service at Sh18 million.
On the drilling rigs, investigations centre around the manner in which a Chinese firm was given an additional contract in a job worth Sh6 billion.
Sichuan Honghua Petroleum Equipment Limited (SHPE), had in 2012, been awarded a contract to supply three drilling rigs when the tender had been for two.
