Kenyan Senate Probe Uncovers 6.6 Billion Shillings Loss in Cooking Oil Import Saga

The Senate Trade Committee has opened the lid on how Kenyan taxpayers lost 6.6 billion Kenyan Shillings out of the 9 billion Kenyan Shillings that had been earmarked for the importation of edible oil.

The Star reports that, in a case of deep-rooted corruption and mismanagement in the country’s procurement system, the Kenya National Trading Corporation found itself at pains to explain how, among other things, it was forced to re-sell edible oil imports below local market prices to be re-exported.

A probe by the Senate Committee on Trade, Industrialization and Tourism revealed that some 797,564 twenty-liter jerrycans that had been imported to cushion Kenyans from high commodity prices were diverted and sold to two companies called Environ Pro and EnBV Kenya to be re-exported.

Documents tabled before the committee showed that for a 20-litre jerrycan, the corporation sold it for 3,028 Kenyan shillings, way below the price at which locally sold cooking oil was retailing for.