Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has defended the controversial award of lucrative government contracts to an Indian conglomerate, as former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka accused the broad-based Cabinet of perpetuating state capture.
Mr Odinga revealed that he was introduced to Adani Group by India Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said Mr Modi organised a visit by a Kenyan delegation to the company’s projects, including a port, a power plant, a railway line and an airstrip developed in a swamp donated by the government of India.
“After the Kenya government delegation came back, the company expressed interest in investing in Kenya,” Mr Odinga said in Mombasa after an ODM party meeting.
The Adani Group bagged the latest deal on energy on Friday. Energy and Petroleum Cabinet Secretary Opiyo Wandayi announced a deal between Kenya Electricity Transmission Company and Adani Energy Solutions in which the Indian firm would build and operate five projects costing Sh95.68 billion for 30 years before handing them back.
Mr Wandayi is one of the five ODM members who recently joined Dr Ruto’s Cabinet. Adani is also in negotiations for another controversial agreement that is the subject of court and parliamentary investigation – the $2 million (Sh258 billion) deal to operate the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for 30 years.
Adani has further been linked to a Sh104 billion Universal Health Coverage (UHC) information system through Apeiro Limited.
Mr Odinga, who has kept off publicly commenting on governance matters since he launched his campaigns for the African Union Commission (AUC) chairmanship, defended the Adani Group as a reputable firm but added its entry to Kenya may be hindered by ineffective legal frameworks.
The company, he said, had shown interest in investing in Kenya since 2010 when he was Prime Minister under the then Mwai Kibaki’s coalition government.
Although he praised the company’s capabilities, Mr Odinga said Kenya lacks a proper Public Private Partnership model to secure the country’s interests, as well as those of foreign investors.
Despite the lucrative deal signed on Friday, Mr Odinga said Adani Group’s expression of interest for projects in Kenya is hampered by the lack of a proper legal framework for engaging in Public Private Partnership models of financing of public infrastructure.
He cautioned that Kenya’s PPP laws are incapable of fulfilling the needs of the country or expectations of the people, as well as satisfying the business interests of foreign investors.
“We must change the way we address our planned PPPs if we are to protect the current positioning of Kenya as the most profitable and reliable destination for PPP programmes and at the same time ensure that the interests of the people of Kenya are protected,” he said.
Mr Odinga made several proposals, including the need to design a PPP model fit for the specific realities and needs of Kenya, ensuring the models have a fair distribution of risks between investors and the country, and establishing irreducible minimums, including application of Kenyan laws.
He, however, reiterated that Kenya can no longer sustain development loans from financiers such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), hence any PPP model put in place must bear in mind what is offered to investors by neighbouring countries.
“The ongoing energy and airport projects, therefore, present a critical test that could make or break our ability to compete in the field of infrastructure development for a considerable period. I would urge all the agencies concerned to address all the concerns raised by Kenyans on these projects and ensure that we do not spook foreign capital away from the Kenyan economy,” he said.
Separately, Mr Musyoka dragged Mr Odinga into the multibillion-shilling deals cut between the government and Adani Energy Solutions. The Wiper leader accused the broad-based Cabinet, which Dr Ruto set up two months ago by including five allies of Mr Odinga after a wave of anti-government protests, of overseeing state capture.
“Kenya is facing an unprecedented threat of state capture where key sectors—energy, transport and health—have seen multibillion deals being granted by the broad-based government to one Adani in an opaque and non-competitive manner. We shall continue challenging the deals in court,” he told reporters on Sunday at a Nairobi hotel, where he vowed to stage a fight against the deals.
Talk is rife that the Indian conglomerate has signed a deal to power the Universal Health Coverage agenda. Mr Musyoka said the new healthcare system has exposed Kenyans to immense suffering and even deaths.
The former vice president was accompanied by Dap-K leader Eugene Wamalwa and Jubilee secretary general Jeremiah Kioni.
