EACC puts Gachagua at center of €3.7 billion mosquito net scandal

The EACC on Thursday put accused Vice President Rigathi Gachagua at the center of the $3.7 billion mosquito net scandal, a key issue in the DP’s impeachment motion.

Abdi Mohamud, deputy executive director of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, established a link between Crystal Kenya Limited and Gachagua’s two sons.

Crystal Kenya Limited is a local agent of Shobika Impex Limited, a company that bid for the lucrative mosquito net tender.

“From the documents we have, it is clear that the directors of the company are the DP’s two sons and that is the nexus between the DP and this particular company,” Mohamud told the Senate.

He spoke about the spirited attempts to favor Shobika Impex Limited.

The irregularities, he pointed out, led to the annulment of the bidding process.

Among the irregularities, he told the Senate, was changing the specifications of mosquito nets to suit Shobikaa Impex and its local agent Crystal Kenya Limited.

“All in all, from the investigation, we gathered that the PS at the time wrote to the CEO of Kemsa forcing him to change the specifications to suit the chemical that was to be supplied by Shobika Impex Limited, the “whose local agent was Crystal Kenya Limited. That was basically the starting point,” Mohamud told the Senate.

All this, he noted, was to ensure that Shobikaa Impex had time to present its billing obligations.

“There was direct favoritism in Shobikaa,” he said.

Mohamud appeared before the Senate session that studies the impeachment of DP Gachagua.

According to Mohamud, there was an outside hand trying to micromanage the multi-million shilling tender process.

“There are two conclusions you can draw whether the officers were bribed or there was pressure coming from somewhere,” Mohamud said.

Earlier, former Kemsa boss Andrew Mulwa had disclosed that the vice president called him around July 11, 2023 with instructions to deliver the company’s original bid bond to his local agent.

Later, her son would follow up with another call to ask about the status of the bond on the bill.

“As a minor official, I could not do anything against a vice president,” Mulwa says in his affidavit.

It is this link that the movement’s promoter and Kibwezi West MP Mwengi Mutuse is using to strengthen his case against Gachagua.

If the senators maintain even one charge of the 11, then the DP is impeached.

According to Mutuse, the phone call to the recruitment agency amounted to a conflict of interest that he wants the Senate to consider an impeachable offence.

. The EACC deputy director-general, however, clarified that the commission has no submissions that say DP influenced the tender. Mohamud was summoned to provide the house with information on investigations into the $3.7 billion mosquito net saga.

The anti-graft agency also had to testify about the gifts received by the vice presidents, as well as the conflict of interest in the multimillion-dollar tender.

On gifts, Mohamud said anything above Sh20,000 must be delivered within 48 hours of notification to the public body.

During his address to the media in the nation last week, Monday, the DP attributed the success of his dairy farm as largely due to the generosity of the Kalenjin community.

The DP said he has received numerous cows as gifts from neighbors in the Rift Valley regions.

“The conflict of interest is equivalent to the personal interest of the spouse, child, business partners or agents or other matters. If a state official feels conflicted, he should declare the same,” Mohamed said.

“EACC has not received any gift records from the DP.”

The EACC official however clarified that the commission is yet to investigate Crystal Kenya Limited.