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Graft Alleged as Kenya's Fight Against COVID-19 Struggles

Lenny Ruvaga

   NAIROBI - Organizations have contributed aid worth more than $2 billion
   to help Kenya's in its fight against COVID-19. But much of the aid has
   gone missing, prompting President Uhuru Kenyatta to order an
   investigation into who might have taken it.

   Money and medical supplies were donated by such groups as the World
   Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Jack Ma Foundation.

   The Network Action Against Corruption (NAAC), an organization
   sanctioned by the Kenyan government to promote fiscal accountability,
   accuses KEMSA, a government agency that supplies medicine and medical
   equipment to the Ministry of Health, of embezzling hundreds of millions
   of dollars meant for the COVID-19 battle.

   Several schemes alleged

   The network said officials in KEMSA ran multiple schemes. In one, NAAC
   said, the organization paid for personal protective equipment (PPE)
   that actually had been donated by the Jack Ma Foundation. The money
   then went to phony companies controlled by the KEMSA officials.

   In another, NAAC said, KEMSA officials contracted with fictitious shell
   companies to supply protective equipment. No equipment was supplied,
   but the companies got paid anyway.

   Dr. Gordwins Agutu, chief executive officer of NAAC, said those who ran
   the alleged schemes also planned to resell PPE on the black market.

   "The PPE kits consist of a number of items, but ... the PPE kits, which
   they stole from Jack Ma's donation, they would break it down," he said.
   "So, they have the overalls separately, they have the boots supplied
   separately. So you can imagine how much were they intending to make out
   of that."

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