A Senate Health Committee on Friday, December 11, questioned how a cereals company supplied medical equipment worth Ksh167 million to the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa).
Senior managers of Briema Grains Stores Ltd, Abdighafar Ali and Hassan Abdi Osman, explained that they changed their core business from grains to supplying pharmaceutical essentials due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the grain sector.
"The government made an announcement for supplies to mitigate the spread of the pandemic and we saw it in the media. We know Kemsa is a parastatal with a monopoly for medical supplies and therefore sought the tender," the committee heard.
"We were engaged in cereals but knew the sector was collapsing due to Covid-19. We opted to buy and sell the commodity in demand. We wrote a letter of intent and got a commitment letter from Kemsa."
The company was asked to supply 200,000 KN95 masks at a cost of Sh700 each and 6,000 surgical masks (3-ply) pieces at a cost of Sh4,500.
The two directors stated that it was the first time they worked with the state firm.
"We didn’t have any engagement with Kemsa before the pandemic. We negotiated a price after Kemsa quoted a different figure and after negotiations, were agreed at Sh700 and Sh4,500,” Ali stated.
The senate is probing the misuse of Ksh7.8 billion funds that were assigned for medical supplies through Kemsa.
The grilling of Briema Grains Stores came just a day after a tender rewardee gave a puzzling account to a parliamentary committee on how he clinched a Ksh180 million tender for the supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs).
James Njuguna, the director of La Miguela Holdings Limited, disclosed that he was passing by the KEMSA offices when he saw a number of individuals lining up.
“I went straight to the receptionist who advised me not to waste time and apply for the tenders which were being flouted. I quickly wrote a two-sentence letter and after two hours I was told I had succeeded and asked to collect the commitment letter from the Chief Executive Officer’s office,” the committee heard.
