Shop N Buy directors summoned in Kemsa scandal probe

The Public Investment Committee has issued summons to directors of Shop N Buy company after they failed to appear for probe into their involvement in the Kemsa scandal.

The company is being investigated after it was allocated Covid-19 supplies worth Sh970 million.

PIC is investigating about 100 companies implicated in the scandal.

The firm's directors were due to appear before the Committee to answer to queries on how it got the tender award.

PIC chairman Abdulswamad Nassir said they had given sufficient notice to the firm to appear before the committee.

Last month, Kemsa procurement director's secretary Pamela Kaburu admitted she was instructed to backdate a commitment letter for the company.

Kaburu said in Parliament that she was ordered by suspended CEO Jonah Manjari to indicate Shop N Buy’s letter had been written on April 30.

The firm is among those being probed by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission for its role in the questionable purchases that left Kemsa with a Sh6.2 billion debt.

Kaburu told the Mvita MP Abdulswamad Nassir-led Public Investments Committee that the letter to the three-month-old firm for Sh900 million worth of supplies had been dated May 8.

The secretary said she had no alternative but to obey the orders and that she could not question Manjari over the move since he was her boss.

Kaburu said her immediate boss Charles Juma (suspended procurement director), also told her it was okay “since she had been instructed to write the letter.”

“I only wrote one letter. I can’t know if there were others that were also backdated in a similar fashion. It is possible, though, that some were backdated at the CEO’s office since they had the template,” she told MPs.

Kaburu said a number of commitment letters were issued by Manjari without the knowledge of the procurement office.