Kenyans could have bought faulty 6kg gas cylinders from the government after it emerged that at least 67,251 cylinders supplied under the ‘Mwananchi Gas Project’ were defective, out of the 185,217 cylinders supplied so far.
The cylinders were rejected by the National Oil, which was to retail the cylinders.The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) is now investigating how the gas cylinders worth more than Ksh3 billion were supplied under the programme to provide cheap cooking fuel to the poor.
The project was aimed at reducing respiratory diseases among the poor people and also enhance their living styles. Also wanted to improve entrepreneurship in the country and reduce the rate of deforestation in the country.
The programme was targeting to buy up to one million cylinders by 2019.
“The Government of Kenya working with the Ministry of Petroleum & Mining through National Oil Corporation rolled out a National LPG enhancement project dubbed Mwananchi Gas Project. Under this project, 6Kg complete cylinders (gas, burner & grill), trading under the brand name “Gas Yetu”, is being distributed at a discounted price of Kshs 2000 to households which would otherwise not afford.Besides the discounted program, National Oil is developing a robust distribution model that will enable Kenyan citizens in all the counties access LPG at the nearest shopping center through licensed distributors and retailers.” This is the message LPG sent when rolling out the project.
Taxpayers will now be forced to incur the cost of repairing the faulty cylinders, with one taking up to Ksh600 to repair.
One of the firms contracted to supply the cylinders had 80 percent of its cylinders fail the safety test, recording the worst score among the four in the consortium of winning bidders. So far, it has supplied 61,380 out of the 148,750 cylinders it was supposed to supply.
Another one has delivered 104,350 exceeding the awarded number by 225.
A third one supplied 13,807 out of the 44,625 it was supposed to deliver, while another was to provide 59,500 but has so far supplied 5,680, all passing the safety test.