By The Weekly Vision Team
There’s so much bribery coming from a section of Chinese contractors in the transport and roads sector in Kenya that it has made some senior officials overnight billionaires. The Chinese contractors are known to offer huge bribes and even build palatial houses as kickbacks to top government officials as a thank-you gesture after bugging multimillion-billion-shilling infrastructure deals.
Sacked Roads Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen is today building a King’s home at Kamendi Farm in Chepsiro Ward, Elgeyo Marakwet, on a 1000-acre piece of land that was formerly owned by the Agricultural Corporation of Kenya, a government agency. ADC land has in recent years attracted grabbers and charlatans posing as lessees, many of them senior government officials.
The house is being built by a Chinese contractor (name withheld). The compound also has other dwellings for his aides and a helicopter landing pad for his newly acquired helicopter. The Chinese contractor holds multibillion-shilling road construction works with the Kenya National Highways Authority (KENHA), a government agency under the Ministry of Roads.
Some years ago, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission uncovered a similar bribery racket involving board members at the Lake Basin Development Authority (LBDA) in Kisumu. They were accused of receiving houses in Athi River as kickbacks from a Chinese contractor, Eldemann Properties, to inflate the construction costs for the Lake Basin Mall to cater for kickbacks in return for the lucrative contract.
Less than two years ago (Wednesday, October 19, 2022), when Kipchumba Murkomen appeared before the National Assembly Committee on Appointments, he disclosed that he was worth Ksh. 550 million at the time. His net worth today is unknown but is believed to be in billions of shillings, all acquired within the first year in office.
According to the 2024 American National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, an annual series highlighting key barriers to US foreign trade, American firms are increasingly being edged out by foreign firms willing to pay bribes for tenders. “Foreign firms, some without proven track records, have won government contracts when partnered with well-connected Kenyan individuals,” says the report published by the Office of the United States Trade Representative on March 29, 2024.
“I am worth an estimated figure of Ksh. 550 million, made up of major properties: my house in Nairobi, another one in Eldoret, two parcels of land in Trans Nzoia, and parcels of land in Narok, Kajiado, and Nairobi, apart from where I live. “I have a bit of machinery, vehicles, and a wheelbarrow, but that comes to about Ksh cumulatively. 550 million,” Murkomen said at the time of his vetting.
