Kenya's Geothermal Development Company (GDC) is unable to trace the physical location of a Chinese firm that it had awarded a Ksh5.8 billion contract in 2014 to drill a rig.
Documents obtained by The Standard reveal that state officials were lured into doing business and paying Ksh1.4 billion in advance to the company that to GDC, only exists on paper.
Correspondence from Hong Kong Offshore Oil Services Limited (HOOSL) to the geothermal company had only one telephone line and a fax number and inconsistent RSVP addresses.
At one point, the Chinese officials wrote to GDC CEO Johnson Ole Nchoe, asking him to download a chat platform, We Chat, for official communication.
Four years after awarding the contract, GDC tried in vain to reach HOOSL in April 2018.
"Please provide us with official registered physical address in China as earlier requested in our email dated April 13, 2018," Stephen Kangogo, GDC's representative wrote again on June 2018.
A similar attempt in October was met with another request for GDC's CEO to download the app to get in touch with the Chinese officials.
Upon further prodding, HOOSL changed tact and blamed Kenya for causing delays in the implementation of the project.
They accused GDC of not providing them with rig site infrastructure information, occasioning the four-year delay in which the rigs HOOSL had mobilised corroded.
"Considering the company's risk, HOOSL has to consider GDC's performance as the project has been shelved," the Chinese firm noted, adding that they would be claiming Ksh1.7 billion as compensation for the loss suffered.
They also demanded a renegotiation of the contract, arguing that the existing one was no longer viable.
