Has it become Kenyan nature to extort from the public in the name of the public?
Key Kenya National Highway Authority (KENHA) executives led by the CEO (Engineer Peter Mundinia) and Chairman (Engineer Erastus Mwongera) are being accused of being greedy, insensitive and not patriotic as they continue to demand huge amount of money in bribes while awarding contracts to companies.
According to key insiders, Eng. Mwongera and Mundinia have made it a defacto policy that every foreigner bidding for a contract advertised by KENHA has to pay Ksh 100 million in bribes in foreign denominations, with the US dollar and Euro being the currency of choice.
On the other hand, each Kenyan company willing to be considered for any contracts at KENHA will pay not less than KSh. 10 million in cash. The bribery amounts are collected at strategic locations by Engineer Njuguna Gatitu who is the executive in charge of Road Asset and Corridor Maintenance.
After collecting the agreed amount, a list of approved contractors is sent to the people doing valuation and contract is then tweaked to match the capacity of the internally approved firms and knockout anyone unwilling to dish out bribes to the KENHA executives.
There days when employees of the authority have gone against the list and that has seen them receiving a serious tongue lashing from the Director General Engineer Mundinia and his associates in the bribery scheme.
A case in point is of a maintenance of Kiambu-Ngewa-Thuita road which was awarded to the lowest bidder which was not in the list of contractors willing to dish bribes drew the ire of Eng. Mundinia and Gatitu that the responsible officer, Eng. Mutii Kivoto was given a show cause letter and contract cancelled.
Now staff members, contractors and other stakeholders believe that the term of the Chairman Eng. Erastus Mwongera is being extended despite the constitutionally approved two terms because of bribery and corruption. The term was extended in March 2018 despite having exhausted his allowed mandate.
The corrupt networks at KENHA are reportedly being in direct contact with CS Transport and Infrastructure James Macharia who is given kickbacks through his indirect links assigned work at KENHA.