How Kenya Power staff took bribes and fleeced the firm

How Kenya Power staff took bribes and fleeced the firm

Kenya Power officials received bribes of up to Sh 900, 000 through Mpesa from officials and directors of firms contracted to supply labour and transport services between 2017 and 2019.

An audit report presented before the court yesterday said the officers repeatedly received bribes and the exchange of money between the contractors and the KPLC supervisory staffers is listed as exodus of the poor quality services delivered.

The works includes line construction and other related services such as emergency jobs, change of rotten poles, underground cabling and reinforcement schemes among others.

“Employees who were receiving money from contractors were sharing with other employees within the company. This clear pointer of a wider association of KPLC employees with prequalified labour and transport firms,” the report reads in part.

“This close relationship and exchange of cash with contractors compromised their objectivity in supervising the contracts hence frequent complaints on quality of works undertaken by the firms.”

The report prepared by KPLC Principal Internal Auditor Argwings Kodhek indicated that a total of 354 companies or 67 percent of the 525 companies contracted by the Kenya Power for the services for were ineligible for pre-qualification.

The companies presented fake registration, National Construction Authority and Energy Regulation Commission’s certificates.

The companies applied for the tenders through proxy companies and the report faulted the KPLC tendering committee for including them in the pre-qualification process, despite having failed the basic stages of procurement.

Sixty seven of the companies are related because they were owned by the same directors against the procurement laws. Some of the directors of the firms owned up during the pre-qualification.

Some of the firms listed KPLC employees as their technical directors and supervisors.

The employees who were grilled by auditors denied knowledge or relationship with the said firms alleging that their documents might have been obtained illegally without their knowledge.

Each company was required to submit details of two supervisory personnel who would be employed to supervise the projects if given the tenders.

The key staffers are meant to be full time employees of their respective firms who are to manage the KPLC projects should they be contracted.

Nine key employees submitted by bidders were shared by more than one company.

Others are owned or associated with some of the staffers of the state power distributor. And some of them folded after getting the tenders.

Although the KPLC staffers are not listed as directors in most of the companies they own, they are the signatories to the bank accounts submitted to the company.

Source:https://www.the-star.co.ke/