DCI did not interfere, witness tells court

Jimson Manyura Prosecution witness in the witness dock at a Milimani court during the hearing of the graft. [Photo: George Njunge / Standard]

The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) did not influence my investigations into Kenya Power’s Sh409 million scandal, a witness has told court.

Mr Linus Ndegwa, from the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA), looked into the firm’s procurement processes.

The case facing former managing directors Ben Chumo and Ken Tarus has to do with purchase of substandard transformers between 2011 and 2012.

He told Milimani Court Magistrate Felix Kombo that DCI and its officers acted diligently and never interfered with his work.

He said DCI officers did nothing out of the ordinary while he was preparing his report.

“Did DCI or its officers blunder? Is there anything out of the ordinary that they did?” posed senior assistant DPP Alexander Muteti.

“No,” he replied.

Ndegwa insisted the DCI did not press him to exclude Energy Principal Secretary Joseph Njoroge from his damning report.

Ndegwa did not blame Njoroge over the saga that happened when he was at the helm of KP.

He said when DCI failed to give him the documents he needed, he wrote an email to his boss over the same and copied it to the investigating agency.

The witness said the DCI sleuths never asked him to investigate Kenya Power and that he was allowed to work freely at their offices.

On Muwa Trading Company, the only firm he mentioned in his report, the witness said the only interest the DCI had in the firm was to know whether its contract with Kenya Power had been terminated under the law.

KP terminated Muwa’s contract mid-way, citing non-compliance with the terms and conditions it had issued.

“Were you prevented by DCI or anyone from approaching the procuring entity,” asked Muteti.

Ndegwa said no.

The court heard that the report was independently crafted.

According to the witness, he identified problems in the procurement process while in other instances he found none.

The witness said he found a Kenya Power staff participated in the opening of the tenders while he did not have an appointment letter.

In the evaluation, he claimed, the technical evaluation criteria were not disclosed in the tendering document.

Ndegwa claimed a document was sneaked into the tendering documents.

He also claimed financial evaluation was done beyond the stipulated five days.

At the evaluation stage, there were no individual score sheets, he said.

The witness said he also identified another problem where the orders were split.

“Splitting is an offence,” he said adding the effect of splitting is that Kenya Power did not enjoy value for it money.

He also claimed the tender was awarded beyond the 90 days.

On termination of contract, he claimed there were no minutes of the tender committee.

The first prosecution witness said the same awarding body ought to have terminated the contract after receiving a report from Kenya Power’s head of procurement.

Missing pages

The re-examination had to be halted after defence team raised concerns that there were missing pages in copies of Ndegwa’s report supplied to them.

But in opposition, Mr Muteti claimed it was a strange coincidence that his document had page 18.

But the magistrate’s record was also missing page 18 and had a repeated page 16.

The court ruled they should not refer to the missing page.

And a second State witness told the court procurement regulations were not adhered to.

Jimson Munyura, a compliance officer PPRA, said KP awarded the tender beyond the 90 days validity period.

Munyura prepared the damning report together with Ndegwa.

“As an expert in procurement, what was your verdict on procurement of transformers,” he was asked.

“The procurement of transformers was not conducted fully in accordance with the Public Procurement and Disposal Act,” Munyura replied and said he stands by the report they prepared.

According to the witness, the tender committee ought to have terminated the tender after claims of non-compliance with agreed terms.