Adil Arshed Khawaja.
Adil Arshed Khawaja was, until recently, mostly known for his legal practice and chairmanship of the Safaricom board of directors. His intricate involvement in the controversial Adani Group’s bid to take over key national assets has however put his name on the lips of most Kenyans who have closely followed revelation after revelation of the Indian firm’s proposal to sign multi-billion shilling contracts that could see it control strategic public institutions for up to three decades.
The hurried and opaque manner in which State officials and well-connected individuals have pushed the proposal to lease out the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for $2 billion (Sh258 billion) has elicited strong reactions from Kenyans, attracting ongoing court petitions as well as a parliamentary committee hearing. After weeks of controversy regarding the JKIA proposal, it also emerged that the Adani Group was linked to a tender for the provision of a technology-based system for Universal Health Coverage (UHC) over a ten-year period, at a cost of Sh104.8 billion.
As managing partner at Dentons, Hamilton Harrison & Mathews; Mr Khawaja admits that he is closely involved in the controversial Adani deals. Dentons HHM is the advocate for the controversial Adani Group, which is eyeing mega investment deals in the country including in the energy sector. In a rare interview with Nation, however, Mr Khawaja is quick to point out what he sees as the potential benefits the proposed transactions will bring to the country.
Trusted advisor
About 100 days into President Ruto’s tenure, Mr Khawaja was appointed as a non-executive director at Safaricom, putting him at the helm of Kenya’s foremost corporate behemoth. A few weeks later, the Safaricom board appointed Mr Khawaja the telco’s chairman, replacing John Ngumi, a close ally of former President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Safaricom undertakes big-ticket government projects, making it strategically one of the most important corporates in the country whose management has direct access to State House. His appointment to this position underscored his close relationship with the incoming Kenya Kwanza administration.
Since then Mr Khawaja has accompanied the President, a frequent traveller, on most of his foreign trips, putting him on a short list of the Head of State’s most trusted advisors. He does not deny the description of being the President’s Mr Fix it.
“When you see the President going on a trip, he is going to talk to investors to invest in our country. He must have people that can help to provide the necessary advice,” said Mr Khawaja in a phone interview on Monday.
The managing partner at Dentons, Hamilton Harrison & Mathews calls the President his long-time friend. “President William Ruto is my close friend of more than 30 years. Our friendship goes way back between our families. But I am not the President’s personal lawyer.”
Indian billionaire Gautam Adani speaks during an interview at his office in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad on April 2, 2014. Reuters
The University of Sheffield alumni serves on various boards that include Rhino Ark Charitable Trust, CMC Motors Group Limited and Atua Enkop Africa Limited.
He had an eight-year stint as a director at KCB Group between 2012 and 2020, the latter four of which he served as the bank’s chairman.
Mr Khawaja also served on the board of Kenya Power, where he quit in July 2020 alongside four other non-executive directors as part of a reorganisation at the utility firm.
Adani Group is banking on Dentons HHM to handle legal cases challenging its proposed takeover of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in a 30-year lease.
Adani Airports Holdings Ltd, a subsidiary of the Adani Group, picked Mr Khawaja’s law firm to defend it in the case filed by the Kenya Human Rights Commission and the Law Society of Kenya seeking to stop the transaction.
Tremendous benefit
“Based on the proposal and the feasibility study, the PIP (privately initiated proposal) will be of tremendous benefit to the Kenyan public. If the contract is signed as proposed in the PIP, the project will elevate the status of JKIA and also offer an increase in job opportunities to the people of Kenya,” said Adani in its replying affidavit drawn by Dentons HHM.
Adani is also eyeing a separate Sh95 billion deal with the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (Ketraco) to construct high-voltage power transmission lines and substations in Kenya.
Mr Khawaja says that his law firm was referred to Adani through its offices in London and the United Arab Emirates. He says Adani Group picked his law firm due to its years of experience and track record advising on mega PPP deals that have proved successful.
“Adani is one of the biggest companies in the world. They are already running the Port in Tanzania and they want to expand across the East African region,” he said, giving away clues on what he terms as additional PPP deals in the pipeline.
Adani International Ports Holdings Pte Ltd (AIPH) in May signed a 30-year concession agreement with the Tanzania Ports Authority to operate and manage Container Terminal 2 at the Dar es Salaam Port.
Dentons HHM has also been engaged in the deal for the provision of a technology-based system for the Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
The government has awarded the consortium a contract to provide an Integrated Healthcare Technology System (IHTS) for the UHC programme, saying in a statement that payments to the partners will be based on achieving pre-set performance benchmarks.
Abu Dhabi firm, Apeiro Limited, owns 59.55 percent stake in the consortium, Safaricom has a 22.56 percent stake, while Konvergenz Network Solutions Limited has a shareholding of 17.89 percent. Apeiro is a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi-based investment firm, Sirius International Holding. Sirius is a subsidiary of International Holding Limited (IHL), creating a web of companies that make it hard to track the beneficial owners.
Sirius is currently in a joint venture with Adani, in which they run a company known as Sirius Digitech Limited. In July this year, this joint venture announced the acquisition of Coredge.io Private Limited which they called a “cutting edge sovereign AI and cloud platform company”.
In the UHC consortium, Safaricom is represented by its long-time legal representatives Kaplan & Stratton while Apeiro is represented by Anjarwalla & Khanna (ALN Kenya).
Meanwhile, Dentons HHM is representing Konvergenz.
Security checks at the entrance of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi.
“We gave some preliminary advice to Konvergenz. They are a big technology firm that has done many large projects that have been successful,” said Mr Khawaja.
He added that the UHC programme was already in place even before he was appointed the Safaricom chairman.
“This programme was started by former President Uhuru Kenyatta and it is only now that we are seeing its implementation. A lot of background work had been done in the last two years,” said the lawyer.
He argues that public-private partnerships (PPPs) are critical to the country’s development amid shrinking public fiscal space.
“My firm has had 12 years of PPP experience. We have advised on a lot of projects and some are still in the pipeline in various sectors including healthcare,” said Mr Khawaja.
He terms the appointment to the Safaricom board as “merited”, given his vast boardroom knowledge and experience.
“Any President will not give a stranger the chairmanship of Safaricom. I have the knowledge and experience chairing many big companies,” he said.
The Kenya government, through the National Treasury, holds a 35 percent stake in Safaricom.
President Ruto’s son, Nick Ruto, a lawyer by profession, also works at Dentons HHM. Mr Khawaja says that Nick’s employment at the law firm had nothing to do with his friendship with the President.
“I didn’t even know that he had applied. We receive thousands of applications each year and he was one of the applicants, he went through the process and was selected,” he said.
He defends the President’s son’s employment at the law firm, arguing the company has employed similarly high-profile individuals in the past.
Mr Khawaja started out as a trainee at Hamilton Harrison & Mathews, which would later merge with Dentons, a global law firm.
Outside his work, the lawyer is active in the wildlife and environmental conservation space. He has been a member of the Nairobi Arboretum Conservancy Community Forest Association, a trustee of Care for the Wild and an advisor of Friends of Conservation. He is also a former trustee of the Kenya Wildlife Service and a board member of the National Environment Council.
