Did you know that a senior State House official called Deputy President William Ruto’s ally, Kenya Pipeline Managing Director Joe Sang, and told him to resign or face arrest?
Sang is close to Ruto and is a frequent visitor to the DP’s Harambee House Annex and his Karen residence.
According to The Star, the State House official did not say whether he had instructions from President Uhuru Kenyatta to issue the ultimatum.
But the official, according to two KPLC board members, informed Sang that he had to leave office to facilitate investigations into multi-million shillings scandals.
“He was given the two choices and asked to choose one. He chose to resign in the hope that he would not be investigated or arrested,” a board member said.
But no sooner had Sang handed in his resignation letter than the board accepted it and immediately invited the DCI to investigate a number of issues. It announced that it will undertake a forensic audit of some of major controversial projects.
In a statement, chairman John Ngumi said the board decided to invite the DCI to probe the loss of 11 million liters of fuel under Sang’s watch.
The board appeared to yield to pressure from oil marketing firms by ordering a forensic audit of the stock positions by December 31.
The forensic audit will be done by the firms through their joint company, Supplycor Kenya Limited, after they expressed alarm about an oil theft scam at KPLC.
Ten leading oil marketers had written a joint letter dated October 26, 2018, in which they demanded to conduct their own forensic audit to check the accuracy of stock statements issued by KPLC.
The marketing firms at loggerheads with KPLC management over loss of the fuel want to establish the location of the oil, a request that sparked vicious boardroom wars at KPLC headquarters.
The management previously explained that the 11.646 million litres of fuel was lost through spillage of 5,956 million litres and pilferage of 5.69 million litres between March 2017 and May 2018.
“The board directed management to accord maximum cooperation to both the DCI and forensic auditors,” Ngumi said after chairing the special board meeting.
Ngumi, who is serving his second term as chairman of the board, said Sang had given assurance of “full cooperation during the transition”.
“The board will immediately embark on the process of recruiting a managing director,” he said of what could be the next battlefront of intense lobbying within political circles.
Oil marketing firms have disputed the management’s explanation oil loss and want the oil distributor firm compelled to compensate them for products lost while in KPLC’s custody.