Kinoti summons Kenya Pipeline top brass over Sh1.8b oil jetty scam

The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has summoned top officials of the Kenya Pipeline Company for grilling over the saga surrounding the construction of an oil jetty in Kisumu.

According to a letter signed by Kuriah Obadiah on behalf of DCI Director George Kinoti, those set to appear before detectives between Thursday and Monday are chairman John Ngumi, Managing Director Joe Sang, the chair of the Board Technical Committee Major Neepe Itayason, former chair, Board Finance Committee Faith Boinnet and former chair, Board Audit Jerry Simu. Others are the finance and infrastructure managers.

The company embarked on construction of the oil jetty in the lakeside city to facilitate safe transportation of petroleum product through Lake Victoria to the neighbouring countries, a move meant to give the country a competitive edge in the region as the leading oil transporter.

The jetty was expected to boost throughput in Kisumu by one million litres a year in Phase 1 and up to three million litres per year by 2028.

However, it has been marred by controversy following claims of demands for kick backs by senior officials and use of building materials bought in 2001, which had ostensibly been disposed as scrap metals before the project was initiated.

It is alleged 50% of the materials were stored at the KPC yard in Industrial Area, Nairobi, while the remaining were kept at the facility in Kisumu. The latter is believed to have been sold to the same contractor, South Engineering Company (SECO), which later used the same to construct the jetty and charge KPC exorbitantly. KPC paid a whopping Ksh 1.8 billion for the project, whose viablity is not assured, according to some whistle blowers.