The National Assembly Committee on Public Investments-Commercials Affairs and Energy has put on-the-spot management of the Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA) over audit queries on the construction of the facility’s headquarters.
The Office of the Auditor General (OAG) raised various queries for the financial year 2018/2019 to 2020/2021 on the construction of the 17 floors of KMA headquarters in Mombasa Town that was supposed to cost Sh1.7B at inception but the amount was increased by Sh500M.
Members of the committee led by Eldas MP Adan Keynan demanded that the KMA Director General (DG) Engineer Martin Dzombo Munga and other witnesses be grilled under oath, over concerns that they were circumventing critical questions.
Chairman of the Committee David Pkosing said it is the work of parliament to ensure prudent use of taxes collected from citizens.
“We are here to examine the books of KMA which is housed here and to look at queries that were raised by the Auditor General and specifically about this building that we are in which is the headquarters of KMA,” said Pkosing.
“The OAG raised fundamental issues relating to variations this building was designed to cost about Sh1.7B but eventually it exceeded Sh2B. the question is what justification the bidders or contractors had in the variations,” he added.
Pkosing noted they are looking for the value of money used in the project on behalf of Kenyans.
Today the committee will delve deeper into the queries raised by the OAG and KMA responses. The committee visited some of the items in the building that caused variations.
Fundamentally, the Chairman of the Committee said the building caused variations of about Sh500M, “which is a lot of money”.
“We have explained some of the issues are stabilization of the building to be able to accommodate 17 floors. That includes pilling, stabilization of the soil, protection of the foundation, and several other issues,” stated Pkosing.
The newly appointed KMA DG Eng. Munga who is six weeks in office said the Sh500M variation has not been paid to the contractor and is subject to further discussions with the Ministry of Public Works.
By Sadik Hassan
