Senators now want President William Ruto to reveal the ‘new information’ that pushed him to cancel the controversial Adani Group deals with state agencies.
This is even as they called for full disclosure of the controversial deals that triggered a massive uproar, including an airport workers’ strike at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
During his State of the Nation Address last week, Ruto ordered the ministries of Transport and Energy to cancel their multi-million shillings partnership deals with the Indian firm.
“...based on new information provided by our investigative agencies and partner nations – that the procuring agencies...immediately cancel the ongoing procurement process...” Ruto said.
During the debate on the President’s speech, senators asked the head of state to disclose the details of the new evidence he alluded to in his address.
According to the lawmakers, President’s failure to tell the nation the nature of the information left more questions than answers given he had defended the deals before.
“One of those aspects that the President would have told Kenyans is where the rain started beating us on the matter of the Adani deals,” Kitui Senator Enoch Wambua said.
“I heard the President saying the reason for the cancellation of the deals was because he had come across new evidence. I would have expected the President to table that new evidence,” he added.
Wambua claimed the Adani deals were a scheme to pilferage and con Kenyan taxpayers.
“I have not seen that new evidence against Adani. What is happening to Adani are things that the President has been told about from the day Adani was mentioned,” he said.
The President directed the cancellation of the Sh95 billion deal with Adani for the construction of power transmission lines as well as the ongoing negotiations to upgrade JKIA.
Ruto’s cancellation came on the day Adani was indicted in New York, US for allegedly bribing offi- cials to win tenders.
US prosecutors claimed that Adani agreed to pay more than $250 million (Sh32billion) in bribes to Indian government offi- cials to obtain solar energy supply contracts between 2020 and 2024.
Migori Senator Eddy Oketch said the secrecy and opaqueness in the Adani deals aroused curiosity.
“Even after this cancellation by the President, still there are doubts on the details of the contracts that were in this Adani Group deal,” he said.
Oketch asked the President to make public all the cancelled deals and any costs that Kenyans are likely to incur as a result.
“Was there some money spent by the government to do due diligence on Adani? For instance, if you are going to do a power investment of Sh98 billion, you can be sure that diligence will be needed,” he added.
“Can the government once and for all be transparent to the country on this Adani issue so that the public trust that the government of the day continues to lose from the people should corrected.”
Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna said the Adani deals were suspicious from the beginning due to the failure of the government to disclose their details.
“They say that where there is smoke, there is fire. There were always signs, which were all brought to the attention of the public and the attention of the administration,” he said.
He said there was a point at which Adani’s accounts in Switzerland were frozen. Nominated Senator Tabitha Mutinda, however, said the President’s move to cancel the tenders proves that he is a listening leader.
“As a country, it is high time we embraced the Public Private Partnership system. Looking at our financial status, the recurrent expenditure is very high and we need the PPPs to develop the infrastructure that is going to improve our economy, moving forward,” she said.
