All the transformers that Kenya Power procured were received and paid for, Nairobi court heard on Friday.
Peter Kinaro Muchori, a KP supply chain officer, was testifying in a case in which former CEO Ben Chumo and top company officials have denied corruption charges in connection with the procurement of faulty transformers worth millions of shillings.
Kinaro told senior principal magistrate Felix Kombo that MUWA trading company was given the order to deliver the transformers and started doing so in February 2014. It had delivered 352 pieces of 1000KVA by March 2015. The delivery note was dated May 5, 2015.
“I was informed through a memo from the from company secretary Beatrice Meso (one of the accused) that the order had been cancelled for breach of contract,” said Kinaro.
By then only 19 pieces of 100KVA were in stock as others had been distributed to users and other stores.
Kinaro did not issue the 19 transformers and they are still in store as there was an email from supply chain officer Joseph Mutisya directing him not to release them.
He said that none of the transformers received at the yard and paid for was faulty or substandard or fake.
He told the court that he was instructed by procurement officer Justin Maina to receive the transformers from MUWA trading because the contract had been reinstated.
According to him, the supplier delivered 30 pieces of 1000KVA between February 7 and 9, 2018 which were inspected and approved on February 15, 2018, by the inspection officer and acceptance committee.
Some 176 more transformers were inspected, tested and approved.
Kinaro said that all the transformers inspected and accepted were forwarded for payment. The ones that failed the inspections were returned to the supplier, repaired and accepted for distribution.
“When the transformers are accepted by the inspection and acceptance committee I feed them in the system and print a good received note which is attached to the delivery note and inspection report and then delivered to my office for signing and then forwarded to Stima Plaza for payment,” he said.
Chumo's co-accused include his successor Ken Tarus. They are charged with conspiring to commit an economic crime and abuse of office. Specifically, they are said to have entered into a contract with a private firm for the supply of faulty transformers.
The prosecution says that the tendering process was against the country’s procurement laws.
