Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) Managing Director Joe Sang has refuted claims that the institution lost Sh95 billion in skewed tenders, terming the reports by the media as false and malicious.
Speaking to the media on Tuesday morning, Sang however confirmed that three top officials at the company had been suspended pending the ongoing investigations by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC).
“The performance we did last year was a profit before tax of Sh11.5 billion. That is not a company that has swindled Sh95 billion,” Sang said.
“As a company, we are open to public scrutiny and we will continue to partner with all the government agencies in this endeavour. We will continue to provide all documentation. We are open, we are transparent and we are ready.”
At the heart of the alleged scandal is a lucrative tender awarded to a Lebanese firm, Zakhem to build a new pipeline in 2014 at about Sh48 billion, but the contract was reportedly inflated by about Sh2.7 billion.
However, Sang said the tender was advertised as “international competitive tender” on January 16th and closed on February 28th 2013.
“For us to lose Sh95 billion, it means we would be out of business,” he added.
It’s time for Kenya to start…
It’s time for Kenya to start conducting quarterly, semi-annual and annual audits on this companies. The companies should file quarterly reports if they are not already doing so; tender awards should be reviewed by an independent body. We also need Kenyans to teach ethics and patriotism to our people and these should not be taught by foreigners. Everything was stolen from us through colonialism and Neo-colonialism. Time to teach new lessons. Now we are stealing from our own people and from ourselves. God help Kenya!!!
Any public company in Kenya…
Any public company in Kenya is mandated to conduct audits ;quarterly and Annual and they indeed do so but as we have it , most have insider auditor “friends” in the big three “independent” CPA firms in that country and therefore never report the deficiencies found and sweep those under the lag after kitu kidogo, so it’s not a matter of conducting Independent audits but a matter of Ethics and strictly adhered to elsewhere except our republic. If you own shares in any of the public firm, they do send annual reports even huku majuu – I get mine but do I believe the audited numbers , probably not. Cooking books in Kenya is the order of the day – it is the real numbers behind the numbers that is crucial . Yes God help us!