Top officials in various Government ministries are colluding with Cartels to loot billions of public funds through irregular procurement processes, it has been revealed.
Well-connected cartels in private and public sectors are said to operate from secluded high-end hotels where they cut deals, get a preview of confidential contract details and decide who gets what contract and at what amount.
During such meetings, rogue procurement chiefs from Government ministries and State corporations are roped in to agree on the cuts, kickbacks and percentage of benefit once deals are sealed.
It is such connivance that has seen briefcase operators without proof of competency to deliver bag lucrative tenders. Thereafter they sell the bid to established firms at a prime fee, with the loot shared out among the players in the chain.
One such company has opted to negotiate with Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission for an out-of-court settlement over a Sh800 million tender it won when it had no capacity to supply the commodities.
The Standard reports that not only was the cost of the equipment inflated from Sh308 million to Sh800 million, but the company also sub-contracted the tender to a Chinese firm at a cost of Sh525 million, leaving the broker with Sh275 million for just being a go-between.
In some instances, one individual registers up to 10 companies and applies for the same tender using different names. Through collusion with the procurement entities, the same person will get the benefit using a different entity.
Last month, the PPARB board saved Sh12 billion public funds from being fraudulently used by the National Irrigation Board when the State corporation awarded a contract for construction of Lowaat Dam Project in Turkana at a cost of Sh29.8 billion, yet the project was estimated to be Sh17 billion.
PPARB members Rosemary Gituma, Mr Gicheru, Hussein Were, Nelson Orgut and Paul Ngotho found shocking details of how the irrigation board awarded the contract, including faking figures of the lowest bidder and inflating it to conceal the fraud.
At the Kenyatta National Hospital, a contract for providing Tesla MRI machines was inflated to Sh416 million when the tender sum was supposed to be Sh294 million. According to PPARB, which cancelled the tender, KNH illegally introduced another cost for maintenance of the machines, which was not supposed to be part of consideration to increase the amount.
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