Kenyan taxpayers are on the receiving end of bad news involving a Ksh 14.2 Billion scam at the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (KETRACO).
Investigators are busy analyzing documents of land compensation in relation to the 450-kilometre, 1,500-megawatt Mombasa-Nairobi power line.
Auditors noted that no standard compensation rates were employed in determining limited use of land. As such, KETRACO officials allegedly took advantage of the situation negotiating different payments for similar parcels of land.
According to reports on paper, as revealed by Nation, the money was paid to genuine landowners on whose property the transmission lines were put up.
Detectives are, however, convinced that officials at the state agency engaged in actions of cooking the figures in order to profit themselves at the expense of taxpayers.
In one case, for instance, investigators uncovered that a landowner in Kisaju, Kajiado County, was paid 10 times more than the actual value of his land.
The case mirrors hundreds of others that were involved in the construction of the Mombasa-Nairobi transmission line.
Early reports by the investigators call for charging of the officers for failure to comply with the law.
The Tsavo-Embakasi phase of the project was also considerably delayed for four years and six months.
An audit report by the company indicated that delays resulted in “a huge cost impact to KETRACO as the contractors claimed their overheads, idling equipment and manpower, stoppages, acceleration, mobilization and demobilization.”
A review of other government projects shows that such is becoming a trend in the country. While the government projected to spend Ksh3.8 billion on land compensation for the SGR, the phase from Miritini to Embakasi consumed Ksh30 billion.
Other than the fraudulent payment, poor management was manifested in idling of machinery and staff, stoppage of works, and questionable length of the transmission lines.
What is more is that the substations and supply lines were vandalized before they could be completed.
