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
4/ It would have been impossible to tell this story without the help of whistleblower Bernard Muchere, an internal auditor and anti-fraud expert who revealed the 2016 Afya House scandal. standardmedia.co.ke/kenya/article/…
5/ Bernard Muchere
“The MES contracts were fraud ab initio. The fraud was schemed through initiation as PPP projects, after which the contracts were unlawfully converted into commercial contracts, shifting the financing responsibility from the managed equipment provider to GOK”
6/ Beware PPPs...
His team was denied access to the contractual documents, which contained detailed information, confining them to scanty information on the payment documents.
The PPP subterfuge is the same way the Standard Gauge Railway tender was done.
7/ When the contracts were being awarded, there was no budget for the MES project in the first three years — 2013/2014, 2014/2015 and 2015/2016.
To deal with the lack of budget, the Ifmis cashbook shows that payments were made under Hire of Equipment, Plant and Machinery account
8/ It was not until the 2016/2017 financial year that the government provided a budget for the MES contracts. This was captured under account No. 1081104401 – Managed Equipment Service-Hire of Medical Equipment for 98 Hospital – 2210600 Rentals of Produced Asset.
9/ But the first red flag was when the equipment was subcontracted, given that it was not clear what specialised work the subcontractors were to provide.
Records of payments shown in the Ifmis cashbook reveal that the MES contract might have been a fraud.
10/ On August 21, 2015, Bellco Sri Ltd was paid Sh258.7 million. Auditors felt this was a fraud because the contracted company was Bellco SRL (Italy), but the payment was made to Bellco Sri Ltd.
11/ In the same pattern, Mindray Medical Kenya Ltd was paid Sh157.5 million on behalf of Chinese firm Shenzhen Mindray Biomedical Electronics Company, the main contractor.
12/ “This demonstrates that, the condition of inviting bids from the original manufacturers might have been a ploy to prevent other local firms from tendering for the contracts, enabling the schemers to direct the contracts to a few selected local firms,” - Muchere
13/ Your favourite lawyers...
Like the financial advisory services, legal advisers are not provided for under the procurement law. This raises a red flag as to whether procurement of the Iseme, Kamau and Maema Advocates at a cost of $560,000.00 (Sh60.4 million) was lawful.
14/ The other challenge the fraudsters had was how to make sure counties pay for the equipment. To deal with this, Afya House sneaked the programme to be accounted for under the conditional grants, despite not meeting the criteria.
@waweru - Boss, unakumbuka zile siku za kupewa msomo na matusi juu ya hii MES...? Wueh!
Time always reveals everything nakwambia....😂
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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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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---
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.
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.