President must walk the talk in fight against corruption

A report issued last week by a number of civil society organisations, Devolution Forum, attempted to paint a picture of the magnitude of corruption occurring in Kenya since Jubilee came to office two years ago.

The report claimed that since Jubilee came to office, corruption levels had reached what existed during Kenya’s one-party era.

Titled “The 20 Corruption Scandals under Jubilee,” the report carried 20 of the most egregious scandals in the last two years, including the Sh24.6 billion laptop tender that was rejected by the High Court because it had been inflated by Sh1.4 billion above what the winning bidder quoted.

The report concluded that “officials had tried to reserve Sh1.4 billion for themselves”. 

The report also noted the transfer of Sh8.3 billion from the Office of the President to closed and decommissioned police commissioner accounts, during the March 4, 2013 elections, an incident that was cited in the report of the Auditor-General.

Amid demands that Mr Mutea Iringo, who was in charge of Internal Security at the time, explain what happened, the money has remained unaccounted for.

The report asserted that the Standard Gauge Railway tender was single-sourced and irregularly increased from Sh220 billion to Sh327 billion, or Sh107 billion above what was quoted by China Road and Bridge Corporation before Jubilee came to power.

Jubilee awarded the sub-contract for civil works to a local company, APEC, whose directors remain unknown.

Remarkably, the Kenya Government did not conduct a feasibility study on the project.

The only such study was commissioned by the World Bank and concluded that “there is no justification for a standard gauge rail network in the East African region at this time”, recommending cheaper rehabilitation alternatives.

However, no opportunity was provided for a public discussion of the available options, and there has been no explanation of the option that Jubilee settled on.

The report noted the Sh175 billion Lamu coal project, awarded to Centum/Gulf Energy, a consortium that had been excluded at the preliminary Request for Proposals stage, for lack of technical and financial capacity to deliver the project.

They were also the highest power cost bidder, and the tender loser had experience generating over 100,000MW of coal-fired energy globally. The loser was the lowest bidder.

The report also documented the Sh63.5 billion JKIA terminal tender which it said was inflated by Sh9.5 billion in a contract signed in 2013 between the authority and the Chinese firm, Anhui Construction Engineering Group Ltd, which was a variation of the original contract signed in 2011.

The report noted that the Geothermal Development Company received Sh60 billion on the understanding that it would add 440MW of electric power to the national grid by 2014. However, only 130MW had been generated by this deadline. Again, no evidence of a feasibility study exists.

LAND GRABBING

The report covered the Weston Hotel, which Deputy President William Ruto has denied any association with, and which attempted a forced takeover of land belonging to Lang’ata Road Primary School. Little children who had gone to reclaim the land were teargassed.

The report noted that 40 Jubilee MPs, senior government officials and policemen tried to dispossess a private individual of a Sh8 billion 134-acre piece of land in Karen, a case that remains uninvestigated, despite wide publication and information on the issue.

The report also noted the single-sourcing of Sh15 billion CCTV security network to Safaricom and claimed that no costing or feasibility study occurred.

Thereafter, the government awarded Safaricom a fourth generation (4G) spectrum licence for mobile telephony and data, the price for which would be offset by the costs that the government would have paid for the security contract.

The report noted that this arrangement removed market forces from operation, and ensured that Safaricom determined the price for the 4G licence.

Other issues covered were the Sh3 billion Mara Narok revenue collection scandal, associated with a very senior official and his close associate in the Narok county government.

The scandal was at the heart of recent riots in Narok. The report also contained the payment of Sh1.4 billion by President Uhuru Kenyatta to Anglo Leasing, which came after the Controller of Budget had blocked the Treasury from quietly paying the companies before the approval of legislators.

The report included the secret 6.7 per cent shareholding by Excel Magic in PANG, one of the two foreign companies awarded exclusive content distribution rights under the new digital platform.

Excel Magic, it noted, is registered in the British Virgin Islands to unknown “Kenyan owners”. The report noted the forced digital migration of the three main media houses despite 32 African countries having declared unpreparedness for the June 15 deadline.

The report noted that Kenyan troops under AU and Amisom have been engaged in the $250 million (Sh20 billion) export of charcoal from Kismayu in a flagrant disregard of UN regulations developed to strangle Al-Shabaab funding.

Ahmed Madobe, the leader of the Ras Kamboni militia and a former Islamist warlord, became leader of the Jubaland region, which includes Kismayu, in May 2014 and is said to be in business with the Kenyan military. The revelations were made in a UN report published in 2013.

As noted by the NGOs in a statement that accompanied the release of the report, the President has talked about corruption but no action has followed the talk. The time for talk is over, and President Kenyatta must act decisively to save his government from failure.

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