The Civil Society Reference Group (CSRG) has made claims that the Covid-19 donation consisting of medical equipment by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, which he safely delivered to Kenya through his Alibaba Foundations could have been sold to the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA).
Speaking on Sunday, August 16, CSRG Presiding Convener Suba Churchill stated that local governments as well as private entities might have knowingly or unknowingly bought the same items through the individuals that allegedly corrupted their way into the sales.
“It is likely that national government agencies, county governments and private hospitals may have knowingly or unwittingly bought the same items from the devious and crooked individuals who seized the donations at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA),” Churchill said.
The boss also stated that when the donations were reported to have been stolen, nobody came clean or showed any responsibility of the whereabouts.
The said equipment consisted of 100,000 face masks and 20,000 Covid-19 testing kits which vanished shortly after being received at the airport.
The parcel was shipped into the country by an Ethiopian Airlines cargo plane on March 24.
This makes the concerned authorities to think that the persons behind this corrupt operation may be those he termed as “tenderpreneurs.”
“Failure by the DCI to come clean on the whereabouts of the donation even after reports emerged that they had been stolen upon arrival at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport lends credence to the possibility that well connected tenderpreneurs may have seized the donations,” Suba stated.
He urged the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) to publicise their findings on where the donations ended up.
As such, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) was also called upon to look into the procurement graft at KEMSA to dig deeper into companies that were irregularly awarded the tenders to supply PPEs, more specifically where the dubious merchants sourced their supplies.
