KCB Named in the Sh24B Edible Oil Scandal

The Kenya Commercial Bank(KCB) has been named in the Sh24 Billion edible oil scandal Auditor General report.

According to the report, the  Kenya National Trading Corporation (KNTC) board of directors on October 5, 2022, authorized the KNTC management to open a bank account with KCB for the operationalization of the edible oil program.

Further the report, stated that the board also authorized the management to seek approval from the National treasury to procure a line of credit of Kshs. 15 billion from KCB through the specially permitted procurement procedure for importing essential food commodities.

Authorization came a day after the KNTC managing director tabled the requests for approval to the Board.

Consequently, program tasked KNTC with the responsibility of importing and distributing essential commodities such as rice, cooking oil, powdered Milk, and others

The report however noted that KCB, and the corporation on December 7 2022 signed an initial letter of offer of Kshs10.77 instead of the approved Kshs 15 Billion and thereafter on 10th January 2023, signed a loan enhancement letter with a total facility of 24Billion  and issued that the auditor general termed as “not clear”.

“The KCB and the Corporation signed an initial letter of offer dated 07 December 2022 of Kshs 10.77Billion, instead of the approved Kshs 15Billion. Thereafter, a loan enhancement letter was signed on 10 January 2023, with a total facility of Kshs 24 Billion,” the report read.

“However, it was not clear why on 07 December 2022, KCB could not initially offer to the corporation Kshs 15 Billion as approved by the national treasury and instead offered only 10.77 Billion, and on 10 January 2023, a month later, agreed to increase the amount to Kshs 24 Billion,” it added.

The audit, read that the quantities approved under the edible oil program were 7.5 million of 20 Litre Jerrycans.

However, only  2,807,806 jerrycans were procured out of which 2,518,434 were delivered to Both the Port of Mombasa and Internal Container depoy(ICD) Nairobi by the various suppliers.

According to the report, neither of the suppliers was dated or approved.