More details on Kenya Pipeline Ksh. 647M scandal

More details have emerged on what exactly the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) is looking at in the alleged Ksh.647 million corruption scandal at the Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC).

Anti-corruption detectives are combing through voluminous documents obtained from seven senior Kenya Pipeline officials whose homes were raided on Thursday, May 24.

The seven are suspected of circumventing resolutions of the Kenya Pipeline tender committee on the purchase of hydrant valves used for refueling of aeroplanes at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA).

On December 9, 2014 the KPC tender committee resolved to procure the hydrants directly from the manufacturer, Cla-Val Company

But on the very next day, the procurement department ignored the tender committee’s decision, instead forwarded the tender document to the manufacturer and another firm — Allied Inspection and Testing, Inc. — which would end up supplying the equipment through a proxy Kenyan firm. This was contrary to the tender committee’s resolution.

On December 15, 2014, two letters emerged one purporting to come from the manufacturer nominating its competitor — Allied Inspection and Testing — to do the job and the other letter by Allied Inspection was authorizing Aero Dispenser Valve Limited, a Kenyan company to act on behalf of the manufacturer to supply the equipment

The Kenyan firm placed its quotation of Ksh.647 million on December 7, 2015, EACC claiming the sum was inflated five times the engineer’s anticipated cost.

Aero dispenser had allegedly been paid over Ksh.200 million before EACC froze any further transactions as it sought to reign in on the perpetrators. The anti-graft body has probed the manufacturer based in California, the US and Allied Inspection and Testing Company based in Canada.