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350 fishy companies blacklisted after being linked to corrupt deals at Kenya Power


More than 350 companies linked to corrupt deals at Kenya Power Lighting Company have been blacklisted from energy tenders, Energy Minister Charles Keter has said.

The action follows findings of an internal audit that revealed that 350 out of the 500 contractors did not meet the set criteria for pre-qualification.

The report accuses some employees of earning kickbacks by giving tenders to questionable firms through nepotism.

“Any contractor out of those three hundred and something firms will never do any business with the Government of Kenya, not only the Ministry of Energy,” said Mr Keter on Monday.

“We need to circulate that list to other departments. If they are dealing with roads, if they are dealing with REA (Rural Electrification Authority) they have to be removed like yesterday,” he added.

SACKED EMPLOYEES

The parastatal has sacked 18 employees following the audit that revealed that they jointly owned companies shortlisted for contracts with their children, spouses and relatives.

Managing director Ken Tarus, however, says the firm had not lost any money.

“We have identified that the firms were pre-qualified in a manner that was not right. In the meantime, we will not do business with them,” said Mr Tarus. Many of the tenders were for repair of electricity supply infrastructure.

The Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji has given the Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet 21 days to conclude investigations into the firm’s dealings.

The electricity distributor has in the recent past been dogged by controversy following outrage from electricity consumers over inflated power bills and generation of e-tokens.

Early this month, the National Assembly’s Public Investment Committee asked the Auditor-General to conduct a special audit of the system used to generate tokens for prepaid electricity customers.