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Sura Mbaya Profile picture
@surambaya
Sep 21, 2020 • 12 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
In the 1977/78 fiscal year, Dr Nataverbhai Patel's Anpi Pharma and related outfits were awarded tenders for Sh80mn of MoH’s Sh150mn budget for drugs.

They either undersupplied or billed without supplying.

1/
 Of cartels, drugs and elections...

nation.africa/kenya/news/ori…
2/
 Anpi Pharma would under-quote to win the tender then after winning, would come back and state:

“freight charges and cost of materials have gone up. I want to vary the tender.”
3/
 Before Kemsa, there was the Central Medical Stores ran by a Zachariah Shimechero, a Deputy Commissioner of Police at independence and later the Commissioner of Settlement of Squatters.

nation.africa/kenya/news/zac…
4/
 Shimechero schooled at Mang’u High School with the late minister John Michuki. He joined the police service with a direct admission to Assistant Inspector after finishing Kiganjo Police Training College in 1955. Image
4/
 Shimechero was charged in the morning of Wednesday July 25, 1973 with two counts of corruption in office relating to the supply of drugs to the Ministry of Health.
5/
 Shimechero allegedly received a total of Sh143,250 as reward from businessman Arvind Kumar Patel, a director of Poly Chemists for quotations for laboratory equipment, in order to procure two Government tenders for his firm .

Poly was an associate of Anpi Pharma.
6/
 Shimechero was tried and jailed for two years for fraud. Unlike today, the officer's trial did not elicit street protests by hired goons in a country where honesty is demonised and corruption glorified.

He passed on last month after suffering a stroke

the-star.co.ke/opinion/column…
7/
 The Nation newspaper broke the story of the scandal in 1973 (just like today) and Peter Mwaura won Journalist of the Year award in the same year for the story.

nation.africa/kenya/blogs-op…
8/
 It's scary how all these things tend to be interconnected... and in a not-so-good way.

In 2017, there were two companies vying for the ballot paper printing job. One was Dubai’s Al Ghurair and the second was South Africa’s Paarl Media. Image
9/
 Paarl is related to Media24 which in turn is related to Naspers.

Naspers is associated with the architects of apartheid - D. F. Malan, H. F. Verwoerd and P. W. Botha and it was in 2015 forced to issue a public apology to the victims and survivors of the apartheid system. Image
10/
 "In Kenya, Paarl was represented by Dr Shailesh Patel, a well-known tenderpreneur who was the Chief Executive Officer of Africa Infrastructure Development Company."

Dr Patel, a pharmacist, is the son of Nataverbhai Patel, the founder of Anpi Pharma.

nation.africa/kenya/news/bat…
11/
 The IEBC eventually awarded Dubai-based Al Ghurair Printing and Publishing Company the Sh2.5 billion tender to print ballot papers for the 2017 elections

nation.africa/kenya/news/pol…

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More from @surambaya

Sura Mbaya Profile picture
Dec 6, 2020
Nelson Mandela once declared that Ethiopia held a special place in his imagination.

Indeed, the land of coffee, ancient architecture and a resilient people does carry a certain mystique… and a very long, torturous history.

1/
 --Long Thread--

[Pic: Children of the Omo Valley]
2/
 See, Mandela spent two weeks in July 1962 in Ethiopia where he learned the tricks of guerilla warfare from Col Fekadu Wakene, a corporal in the riot battalion of the Ethiopian police force at the time.

Mandela was in Ethiopia by invitation of Emperor Haile Selassie I.
3/
 At 1.1mn km², a population of 110mn & 80 ethnic groups, Ethiopia is one of the oldest countries in the world, having come into existence circa 980 BCE.

Most intriguing is the nation’s ancient links to Islam, and Christianity, which was declared a state religion in 330 CE.
Read 50 tweets
Sura Mbaya Profile picture
Oct 25, 2020
In 1899, Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness, described events in the Congo as “the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience”

Little did he know.

1/
 The story of the Congo is one of untold suffering and spectacular plunder.

---Long Thread---
2/
 Home to the 2ⁿᵈ largest rainforest (65% forest cover) & 2ⁿᵈ largest river in the world, the DRC is roughly the size of Western Europe with a pop'n of 84mn and a GDP of $50bn.

The value of Congo’s natural resources is estimated at $24tn, greater than the US’ $20tn GDP.
3/
 Africa’s 2ⁿᵈ largest country has 10% of the world’s copper, 30% of diamonds, 80% of Coltan, 50% of Cobalt and 12% of hydro-electric capacity.

Mining ($11.6bn) accounted for 95% of exports, 28% of revenue, 20% of GDP & 11% of the workforce in 2016.

britannica.com/place/Democrat…
Read 50 tweets
Sura Mbaya Profile picture
Oct 11, 2020
The story of Col John Ainsworth

1/
 When Nairobi started under Ainsworth, the first municipal budget was 7,161 rupees (± Sh150K), which only paid for the uniforms and salaries of 6 Swahili and 8 Indian policemen, 2 sweepers, and oil for street lights.

nation.africa/kenya/news/pol…
2/
 Called from Machakos to serve as a top civil servant at the swampy town populated more by wild animals than by European settlers, Ainsworth arrived in Nairobi in 1899 at age 25.

Born in 1864 in the UK he died in 1964, at 100 years old.

[Nairobi in 1898]
3/
 Prior to his arrival, British land surveyors had already come to Kenya and identified much of the fertile land as “unpopulated” and ripe for colonial settlement.

There was no knowledge among the Europeans of African land ownership, such as the Kikuyu system of gethaka
Read 15 tweets
Sura Mbaya Profile picture
Sep 30, 2020
First, it was decided the project will be initiated as a public-private partnership (PPP) to escape procurement scrutiny that comes with open tenders.

1/
 A short thread on organised crime in government

nation.africa/kenya/news/sh6…
2/
 As soon as the project was approved, they quickly abandoned the PPP and started an international open tender.

The tenders were then crafted in such a way that a select number of local companies were looped in through the backdoor as subcontractors of original manufacturers.
3/
 Cabinet Secretary James Macharia, who was in charge of the health docket when the contracts were awarded, and Dr Muraguri, disowned an inflated price list submitted by his successor Sicily Kariuki, according to the parliamentary report. The two gave their own price lists
Read 15 tweets
Sura Mbaya Profile picture
Sep 23, 2020
The Postal Corporation of Kenya, PCK or Posta, is the oldest parastatal in Kenya having been founded in 1901 as the Postal Services of British EA (PSBEA).

Over the years however, Posta has faced unending troubles due to corruption and mismanagement.

1/
---A postal thread---
2/
 In 1910, PSBEA offered savings accounts and later evolved into Postbank Credit.

In 1994, the bank collapsed with Sh3.8bn in deposits and Sh3.6bn in loans, due to bad debts owed by connected individuals like Cyrus Jirongo.

businessdailyafrica.com/news/Jirongo-s….
3/
 By 1930 PSBEA was earning revenues of £222,115 against expenses of £181,267 - i.e. it was profitable.

There were even efforts to grow African customers for the Post Office Savings bank. They numbered 1,187 at the time.

libsysdigi.library.illinois.edu/ilharvest/Afri…

[GPO Mombasa built 1890]
Read 25 tweets
Sura Mbaya Profile picture
Sep 13, 2020
In 1972, a shortage of meat forced the govt to license private abattoirs.

In short order, there was an influx of meat, much of which was of dodgy quality.

In 1973, the govt ordered that all meat transport vehicles bear a red stripe for identification.

1/
 ---a thread--- Image
2/
 It was about the same time that Mohammed Ali Motha, a butcher, and his business partner Abdul Habib Adam, founder of Adam's Arcade, came up with the idea of a Halal slaughterhouse in Ngong under Halal Meat Products Limited.

Adam died in 1974, leaving Halal to the Mothas. Image
3/
 In 1974, Jeremiah Nyagah, the then Agriculture minister approved construction of an abattoir and inspection unit at a cost of Sh9.6mn.

The govt loaned £500,000 (±Sh7mn) but declined to take a stake, a decision that would later prove rather costly.

nation.africa/kenya/news/sh6…
Read 13 tweets

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