• Also queried is how the company wrote to Kemsa and the same day got a letter qualifying it to supply, without key documents such as tax compliance certificates.
• She said they have stocks in warehouses Nairobi, and China, sparking the curiosity of who were the big names behind the enterprise.
Image: EZEKIEL AMING'A
A startup company owned by a 27-year-old supplied sample Person Protective Equipment kits worth Sh9 million to Kemsa eliciting talk on how it raised the stock within a short time.
Kilig Ltd on June 2 delivered 1,000 PPE kits to Kemsa to be tested for compliance, stocks which are among those flagged by the auditor general.
The company’s director Ivy Onyango told the Public Investments Committee of the National Assembly that the kits were a sample.
The question on the lips of the committee members was why a contractor would want to deliver samples of such an amount.
Also queried is how the company wrote to Kemsa and the same day got a letter qualifying it to supply, without key documents such as tax compliance certificates.
MPs reasoned that the company, having been barely five months at that time, lacked the capacity to raise such a stock.
A lady walked to Kemsa and was told by procurement officers to bring samples, which the company did with a delivery note.
The Kenya Medical Supplies Agency had told the committee the samples were received before the company was given a commitment letter.
But Ivy, 27, said her company should not be viewed based on either her age or that of the firm itself.
She said they have stocks in warehouses Nairobi, and China, sparking the curiosity of who were the big names behind the enterprise.
The youthful lawyer gave MPs a hard time in unravelling the identities of the said fellows.
She kept calling the said individuals on the kind of responses she was to give the committee.
Much as her company never received any money for the samples, it was poised for a Sh4 billion windfall in the supply of PPEs.
Kemsa later cancelled the commitment it had sought to extend to Kilig Ltd, a firm linked to Jubilee Vice Chairman David Murathe.
Ivy told PIC the company’s manager walked to Kemsa and secured the tender – without much sweat.
This is among the sad tales of how the law was bent in the name of responding to the Covid-19 emergency.
A supplier who had gone to follow up on his other tender told PIC that he saw a crowd and was given a letter of commitment to supplying stocks worth Sh180 million.
James Njuguna had gone to follow up a contract for fire audit and found the crowd which informed him of the Covid19 supplies.
He would then walk to a receptionist who told him of the goings-on and that he could apply.
Njuguna’s company La Miguela Holdings is now facing auction by a bank that extended him a multi-million shilling credit facility to service the contract.
Directors of some two firms failed to appear before the committee on the scheduled Thursday hearings having travelled abroad.
PIC chaired by Mvita MP Abdulswamad Nassir is seeking to unearth the procurement abuses and breaches of the law flagged by Auditor General Nancy Gathungu.
Among issues they are grappling with, are signatures of officials that don’t match as used in other documents, and letters that were backdated to fit a defined time-frame for supplies.
Mandera East MP Omar Maalim pointed out: “We have docs from Kemsa where letterheads are laid out differently. Some have signatures of Dr Manjari appearing differently from others.”
The committee has flagged commitment letters used in the Kemsa tenders saying it has no basis in the law, so is direct retrospective buying.