Operations at the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) yard in Mombasa. Shipping companies owe the authority is owed Sh512 million. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP Last week, the authority’s former MD, Dr Daniel Manduku, resigned, and was replaced by the agency’s General Manager for Engineering, Mr Rashid Salim, in an acting capacity.
Documents indicate that the engineering department had a budget overrun of about Sh1.5 billion on repairs and maintenance in the first quarter of 2019/2020.
Several senior Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) managers will face disciplinary action, including being forced to refund money lost, over several tender malpractices in the organisation, which saw its managing director leave last week.
A KPA Board Audit and Risk Committee report prepared on March 18, obtained by the Nation, shows that managers in the finance, procurement and engineering departments have been asked to explain several malpractices which has seen the organisation either bleed money, leading to losses amounting to billions of shillings.
Last week, the authority’s former MD, Dr Daniel Manduku, resigned, and was replaced by the agency’s General Manager for Engineering, Mr Rashid Salim, in an acting capacity.
TENDER MESS
But the report also fingers Mr Salim’s department as having been part of the tender mess that could have cost the authority over Sh2.4 billion.
Documents indicate that the engineering department had a budget overrun of about Sh1.5 billion on repairs and maintenance in the first quarter of 2019/2020.
This was revealed by an audit ordered by the board for a review of the agency’s repairs and maintenance account between July 2018 and December last year.
The KPA board now says it is “concerned about the issues since they amounted to circumventing set processes and the Public Procurement and Disposal Act, 2015”, and has directed that appropriate disciplinary action be taken against the responsible officers.
The audit also revealed that the Engineering departments overshot its repairs and maintenance budget for the period July and December 2019 by a whopping Sh3.3 billion, from its budgeted Sh380 million, to an actual expenditure of Sh3.72 billion.
PROCUREMENT This saw the board take to task Dr Manduku, the port’s head of civil engineering, and the acting head of procurement. The port’s general manager, finance, has since been asked to explain “why budget locks are not implemented in the SAP accounting system,” to avoid the loss of funds.The board’s report also shows that KPA’s Internal Audit Department had carried […]
