KETRACO CEO Barasa In Panic Over Audit Report

Chief Executive Officer of Kenyan Electricity Transmission Company (Ketraco) Mr. Fernandes Barasa is a man living on the edge following suspected fraudulent deals in his tenure that have come to haunt him. Not new to sweating and fear of being arrested, Barasa was in the news sometime in August 2019 when the heavily built short man ran for his life a city hotel.

DCI boss Kinoti had walked into the hotel where Barasa was in company of other friends, he fled to the kitchen of the hotel on spitting Kinoti fearing that he had come to arrest him. At the time, Ketraco was under DCI probe following complaints lodged that the agency officials had swindled Sh14B land compensation to farmers for the Mombasa-Nairobi electricity transmission line, detectives believe billions were swindled in kickbacks.

However, Kinoti was on a different business and not to arrest the panicked CEO who fled away through the kitchen’s exit. He became a laughing stock amongst his peers.

After living on a borrowed leaf, the fear has struck back again, Kenya Insights has learnt that is breathing abnormally following the tabling of an audit report which was commissioned by the board following several fraud claims and loss of billions in the agency. “The report has caught him by the balls.” A source revealed to this writer. We’re told he’s spending less hours in the office and doing all that he can to prevent the leakage of the audit report to the public. “His fear the report will be leaked to journalists and bloggers, this is only because it implicates him and if the DCI picks it up, he can be arrested, these people have stolen billions from the company.” A source at the firm tells us.

Barasa, a former boss of the now collapsing Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK) and served as Ketraco’s Head of Finance for six years between 2010-2016 before he was promoted to the CEO. Most of the questionable purchases and deals red flagged in the audit dates back to his reign in finance office where he signed off funds putting him in the middle of the circus that he can’t escape from.

Amongst Baraza’s headaches is the questionable Sh618M deal with Liquid Telecom Kenyadeal with Liquid Telecom Kenya that would let Liquid use Ketraco’s infrastructure for their fiber-optic expansion. Initially, Ketraco runs similar arrangement with Safaricom and Jamii Telecom. We’re told the deal with Liquid was marred with irregularities it has since been out on hold as investigations continues.

Barasa and Energy CS Keter are also known to have brushed shoulders over a number of tenders in what  insiders is just fight for the oil in the tenders. The rivalry between the two has seen in the past several projects stopped.

It’s their insights that even attracted the attention of EACC and DCI.

Directorate of Criminal Investigations DCI and the Anti-Corruption agency EACC is said to have been conducting investigations over inflated and suspicious tenders and the evaluation processes involving a number of contacts that could lead to the arrest and possible prosecutions of those involved.

At the peak of their fights which was a matter of clash in personal interests, some of the lucrative deals that were halted included;

TENDER REF: KETRACO/PT/006/2019

Funding is by a French firm (The French Development Agency )Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and is to be used for Reinforcement of Electricity Transmission Network (RETNET) part of the money is also set to be used payments under the contract for EPC (Engineering Procurement and Construction) of National System Control Center (NSCC).

TENDER REF: KETRACO/PT/04/2019 is for quality Management and Information Security Management Systems in accordance with the requirements of ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 27001:2013 Standards respectively.

TENDER      REF:  KETRACO/PT/002/2019        and   TENDER      REF:

KETRACO/PT/003/2019

Insurance Brokerage Services

KETRACO/ST/025/2019 

Restricted tender for Installation of: 132kV Transmission Lines: Lessos – Kabarnet, Nanyuki – Nyahururu, Olkaria – Narok, Mwingi – Kitui and Kitui – Wote.

The heat came at a time when Barasa was still smarting from the controversial Suswa-Loyiangalani transmission line scam that nearly ended his career at KETRACO.

In 2019, KETRACO came under the spotlight after a report alleged that officials working within the body colluded with outsiders and inflated land compensation figures by up to seven times the actual amount.

The report indicated that  Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (KETRACCO) illegally inflated compensation for land by up to seven times the actual cost for the way leaves for  the Loyiangalani/Suswa transmission line.

The cost was inflated by a massive Sh12 billion for land compensations in a case that was suspected  could not have been possible without the involvement of crooked land speculators and surveyors.

Barasa inks the deal with Liquid Telecom executives.

This act alone, made the cost of land acquisition to shoot up to 41 percent of the Sh30.4 billion it cost the government to construct the line.  The cost of the 428 km 400Kv transmission line is quoted as Euro 142 million (Sh17.8 billion), which works out to Ksh 42 million a kilometre. The actual budget for transmission and distribution is Ksh. 277 billion.

At Sh42 million a kilometre, this budget outlay is the equivalent of 6,600 kilometres of 400Kv transmission lines, 60 percent more than all the transmission lines built and under construction over the past decade.

In October 2020, Ketraco’s underbelly in compensation was exposed over the prime ancestral land in Ewuaso Kidong, Kajiado West, following simmering ownership wrangles pitting residents against seven individuals.

The bone of contention being the 4,500 acres along Kajiado-Nakuru boundary, which is currently occupied by Maasais.

The community said some unscrupulous officials from the Ministry of lands and Ketraco colluded  with land grabbers to produce fake documents for their land.

Trouble for the more than 900 families started in 2017 during the compensation process for the second phase of Kenya Electricity Transmission Company Limited (Ketraco) to pave way for power masts wayleave to Suswa substation.

During the compensation,the Maasai natives under Kitet Maasai Community, who had resided in the land for more than 30 years, realised there was a second group claiming payout of the same land; LR N0 8395. The two warring groups were compensated for the same piece of land hence the double payment. Locals say since then, a jigsaw process to reclaim their ancestral land began amid threats from powerful government officers through their conduits.

This came in the backdrop of yet another scandal involving loss of funds running into billions in a suspected cooked up story about vandalism of underground cables. The actual a mount that the Kenyan tax payer lost is Ksh. 1.1 billion.

In that particular case KETRACO paid a contractor twice for the same work done, the contractor (SIEMENS) was paid to repair a high voltage 220kV underground cable. The same company had installed the cables just a few months earlier. The cable subsequently suffered four major acts of vandalism inside the Nairobi National Park. The total cost of the repairs after energization was €8.1 million (Sh944 million).

In a paid up advertisements in the local dailies some times back, the power transmission company said that it paid SIEMENS France Sh944 million to repair the vandalized underground cable which the same contractor had erected for Sh1.1 billion. The cost of repair is a whopping Sh85.8 per cent of the initial cost.

Responding to the graft allegation in what it termed as ‘setting the record straight’, the company explained that the initial cost of the cable was €9.569 million (Sh1.1 billion which was awarded to SIEMENS France IN 2010. The high voltage 220 kV underground cable was completed and energized on September 26, 2016.

‘’The cable subsequently suffered four major acts of vandalism inside the Nairobi National Park. The total cost of the repairs after energization was €8.1 million (Sh944 million) which was undertaken by the same contractor,’’ said KETRACO.

Although the firm secured advertisement spaces with intention of exonerating itself from corruption allegations as captured in four internal audits, the explanation on the amount spent on repair work brought more questions than answers.

Kenyans could not understand how people could enter a guarded park and vandalize a high voltage power cable four times without being spotted. They also picked issue with the high repair cost.
‘’Vandalism of high voltage power cables inside national park, four times? That led to cost of repair almost equaling the original acquisition cost? This is more of an admission rather than a bonafide defense,’’ said Mohamed Welhye, a renowned financial advisor on twitter.

‘’Is this a case where a contractor sends their own people to vandalize the cables so that they can charge to buy new ones? Who steals cables when energized? You have to put off power first,’’ said Tony Waweru also on twitter.

Barasa who has been running a questionable charity foundation’Barasa Foundation’ with his wife Janet Barasa as the CEO is now walking on a thin line with fear that authorities might pounce on him. His foundation has been alleged to bring his conduit of money laundering with demands for him to name the donors falling in dead ears.

Barasa is currently putting up a well oiled campaign where insiders say he has set aside billionsset aside billions to inherit  the Kakamega County from Oparanya. Critics have accused him of using Ketraco’s machinery in driving his agenda including boasting with the agency’s achievements in his campaign portfolio.

Part of his campaign strategy includes silencing critiquing media. Barasa has managed to pocket mainstream media and blogs not to write negative stories about him. If you Google his name you’ll meet PR engineered articles and interviews to hide his dark path.

For a man who has nine lives and often escaping the authorities trap, will this be his last kick?