Kemsa CEO in legal fight with staff on scam falling-out
Kenya Medical Supplies Authority acting CEO Edward Njoroge (left) and acting procurement director Edward Buluma during a Senate Health committee hearing on the irregular award of Covid-19 kit tenders on December 7, 2020.
Just 10 days after Edward Njoroge was appointed acting Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa) acting chief executive, he called managers into a meeting to find out who had blown the whistle on the institution’s irregular procurement of items to fight the spread of Covid-19.
At the August 24, 2020, meeting, Mr Njoroge demanded to know who had leaked information about Kemsa’s procurement mess to the media as public outrage grew over the wastage of donor funds intended to shield Kenyans from contracting the dreaded virus.
The intention was not to celebrate the whistleblower, as Mr Njoroge made it clear to the managers that the individual responsible for the leak would be fired.
The managers remained silent, but Mr Njoroge insisted that he knew who had blown the lid on Kenya’s most shameful scandal in recent times.
Kemsa’s board of directors met the following morning to discuss the procurement mess that saw a few individuals pocket billions of shillings after supplying the agency with equipment at prices well above the market rates.
And the board decided that it was legal affairs director Fredrick Wanyonyi Simiyu who had blown the whistle, hence he had to be punished.
Shortly after the meeting, Mr Simiyu received a letter from Mr Njoroge stating that the legal director was to be interdicted immediately.
Mr Simiyu has since challenged the move to punish him for being a whistleblower, an allegation the lawyer denies, and for failing to advise Kemsa managers on the contracts they entered with suppliers who benefited at the expense of taxpayers.
Mr Simiyu sued Kemsa and Mr Njoroge for the attempt to sack him for allegedly whistleblowing and failing to advise the State agency on whether procurement of Covid-19 supplies were done in line with the law.
Mr Njoroge has defended the decision to push Mr Simiyu out in court, insisting that for an investigation to be efficient, all parties that were in office during the incident in focus must step aside.
Mr Njoroge is adamant that Kemsa followed the law in procuring personal protective equipment (PPE), and blames media houses for publishing stories exposing flaws in the procurement process without authority from the State agency.
The acting Kemsa CEO, however, has refused to respond to some of the accusations put forward by Mr Simiyu such as the allegation on a plan to cover up graft, citing ongoing investigations by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) and Parliament.
“It was only fit that the relevant persons who may have had any part to play in the procurement, warehousing and distribution of PPEs to step aside so as to allow for investigations to be conducted and concluded. We cannot answer to most of the allegations made by Mr Simiyu since it will prejudice the internal investigations currently underway.”
“We cannot equally answer to most of the allegations made by Mr Simiyu since the Senate is actively conducting an enquiry on the issue of procurement, warehousing and delivery of PPEs,” says Mr Njoroge in court papers.
The information leaked lifted the lid on how a few individuals were awarded contracts worth Sh7.8 billion, with some supplying protective equipment like facemasks at inflated prices.
