Damning claims on fired Brand Kenya CEO

Mary Luseka, Sacked Brand Kenya Board chief executive officer. (File, Standard)

Sacked Brand Kenya Board chief executive officer has been accused of embezzling millions of shillings through inflated tenders.

In one instance, the board claims Mary Luseka inflated a contract that would have cost Sh4 million to over Sh83 million and awarded it to a company that did not even have the technical staff or equipment to execute the contract.

It has also been claimed that Ms Luseka was not qualified to head the State corporation tasked with marketing the country, as she lied about her academic qualifications when she was appointed the board’s CEO in 2016.

Abuse of office

The allegations are contained in an affidavit sworn by the board’s director of finance Geoffrey Shimanyula, in response to Luseka’s suit challenging her sacking last month.

Mr Shimanyula stated that Luseka abused her office by formulating tenders in a skewed manner and awarded a tender of Sh10 million to Media Edge Interactive Limited for procurement of services when the lowest cost was estimated to be Sh4 million. “Even after irregularly awarding the tender for Sh10.4 million, she miraculously went ahead to vary that award and increased it to Sh83.5 million. She then rushed to make advance payments to the company while aware that they had no technical staff to do the job,” said Shimanyula.

Another Sh3 million

He said Luseka also irregularly approved another Sh3 million as charges for staff production and Sh1.6 million for equipment, which had not been mentioned in any of the tenders she awarded.

He swore that the board was at risk of losing Sh500 million, which was to be allocated by the Government to support the Kenya Achievement Campaign after Luseka allegedly misused another similar amount allocated in the 2016/2017 budget.

Luseka was fired by the corporation’s board of directors on May 16, citing abuse of office, irregular use of public funds, incompetence and high handedness in handling staff leading to massive resignation.

She, however, filed a suit at the Employment and Labour Relations Court claiming that her contract was unfairly terminated and asked to be reinstated.

But Shimanyula swore that Luseka was not qualified to hold the position, bringing to question how, despite not being qualified, she ended up heading one of the organisations whose role is to market and improve the country’s image locally and internationally. “Luseka told the board she had a Masters Degree in Business Administration at the time she was appointed in October 2016, but it has now emerged that she had no such qualifications and did not meet the minimum qualifications for the job,” said Shimanyula.

The case will be heard on July 4.