Azimio leader Raila Odinga has formally petitioned the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission and the Auditor General and the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority to launch an investigation into the Government-to-Government petroleum deal between Kenya and Saudi Arabia..
Through his lawyer Paul Mwangi, Odinga claimed that no action has been taken by the three bodies since he raised the G-to-G oil issue publicly.
The opposition leader alleged that the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum signed a deal with state-owned petroleum companies in the Middle East, which the government characterised as a G-to-G.
The opposition chief said the characterization of the deal as G-to-G was meant to shield three Kenyan companies from paying 30 per cent corporate tax.
Raila says that despite the government promising that the deals would ease the cost of fuel and depreciation of the shilling against the US dollar, things have worsened instead.
Odinga has called for the resignation of Energy Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir and his Treasury counterpart Njuguna Ndung’u, claiming that the Kenya-Saudi deal was signed and kept secret in order to drive up the cost of fuel in the country while benefiting certain government officials.
Odinga now claims that there is no G-to-G agreement between Kenya and Saudi Arabia or the UAE, but rather a private-sector arrangement.
“At least one of these companies is not incorporated in the country which it is purported to represent as a sovereign entity. Indeed, none of them even purport to represent any of the governments claimed as popularly stated,” Odinga’s lawyer says in the petition dated November 24.
The lawyer says they have gone through copies of the agreement provided by Odinga but have not seen the phrase ‘Government to Government’ used anywhere in the copies of the Master Framework agreements shown to them nor any reference to any understanding between the Government of Kenya and any sovereign government.
“Although it is claimed that these are sovereign contracts, it is also claimed that there was procurement of the international suppliers. It is contradicting, and illogical too, that the Government of Kenya would have tendered to procure a representative of a foreign sovereign government,” the petition reads.
Odinga further submits that the operational agreement also subverts Kenya’s laws on procurement
“A reading of the Operational Agreement makes it clear that the three nominated oil marketing companies are agents of the people of Kenya and not agents of the international suppliers,” reads the papers.
“Indeed, in the Master Framework Agreement, the nominated OMC’s are referred to as “the buyer” of Petroleum products” under the agreement. It is again contradictory, and illogical, that a foreign supplier gets to nominate the buyer of its products and also nominates the agent for the people of Kenya under the Petroleum Act.”
In the opposition leader’s view, the operational agreement undermines the national interest and is an embarrassment to the people of Kenya.
“Although the Operational Agreement is between the Government of Kenya, three locally incorporated oil marketing companies licensed by the Government and a bank where the government is a major shareholder, the agreement is to be ‘governed by, interpreted and construed in accordance with the laws of England’,” he submits.
Odinga is calling for the anti-graft body, the Auditor-General and EPRA to commence a thorough probe into the ‘saga’.
“It is a very grave matter when private commercial arrangements are established to ouster processes set up by law, the way this system named and styled “G-to-G deal” has done to the Open Tender System OTS established by the Petroleum Act,” reads the petition.
