Kenya’s state-owned power company is probing workers for fraud
Employees of Kenya Power, a public utility company in East Africa, have been distressed by a company-wide lifestyle audit that was embarked upon recently as part of efforts to curb fraud.
The first phase of the exercise is currently focusing on the company’s top executives. The second phase will extend to the rest of Kenya Power’s more than ten thousand employees. The audit will also cover major contractors that do business with the power distributor.
In the meantime, the company’s Managing Director, Rosemary Oduor, has assured everyone that there will be fairness in the audit process. Kenya’s Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission will help facilitate the probe by verifying/certifying the sources of assets owned by the parties involved.
It should be noted that the lifestyle audit was recommended by a task force that was set up by President Uhuru Kenyatta to investigate Kenya Power following a $19 million (Sh2.98) net loss in 2020.
Read Also: Dangote Cement grows revenue by 16.53% despite drop in production levels
That was the first loss posted by the company in about seventeen years. And it came as a surprise because the firm was poised for profitability that year. That’s why the task force recommended that the lifestyle of all the company’s employees be probed in order to uncover any potential financial leakages.
The task force also recommended that the entire procurement department of Kenya Power be either re-deployed, re-designated or declared redundant and be replaced with new ones. This is because most of the fraud reportedly happened in the department.
“Use wealth declarations to verify unexplained wealth and this should be initiated through the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission to secure assurance of this value ideal… KPLC board replace (redeploy, redesignate, redundancy) all the staff in the entire procurement department and recruit new staff. In the interim, KPLC to outsource procurement to other government agencies with demonstrated experience in procurement of certain high-quality engineering equipment and machinery,” the task force recommended.
Now, while this is apparently an uncomfortable situation for the workers, the company’s employees (who are represented by the Kenya Electrical Trades and Allied Workers Union (Ketawu), said they will cooperate with the probe. However, they asked that there be fairness.
