The Kenyan government has addressed the Public Private Partnership (PPP) with the Adani Group after the Group’s CEO Gautam Adani, was indicted by a federal court in the United States (US).
Appearing before, the Standing Committee on Energy, the Cabinet Secretary of Energy and Petroleum Opiyo Wandayi responded to the questions raised by the Committee about the KETRACO-Adani deal.
The PPP Directorate and KETRAC conducted a due diligence exercise on Adani Group as provided for under Section 41 of the PPP Act.
He said the government conducted two phases of due diligence and Adani provided documents demonstrating their legal standing.
“At the end of the day, after the two phases of due diligence, KETRACO was of the view that Adani passed the test,’ Wandayi said.
He revealed that the government will continue with the agreements with Adani based on the investigations that were conducted by the Kenyan teams.
Wandayi said the government was not aware of any other issue that could arise after the completion of the due diligence process.
“We had no knowledge of any other adverse matters that could have come to light. We are proceeding on the basis of the outcome of the rigorous due diligence that was undertaken by the contracting authority in line with the law,” he said.
Adani Due Diligence Process
He explained that phase of the process involved document review of all the soft copies that Adani provided to demonstrate their legal, financial and logistical capacity to undertake the projects.
“Adani provided documents demonstrating their legal standing, compliance to laws and regulations including tax compliance in their countries or origin which is India,” he said.
Additionally, he said the process was conducted by two members of the evaluation committee from KETRACO and the Directorate.
Also Read: Adani Breaks Silence Over Charges of Bribery
He said the Commitee members travelled to India to verify the details provided the details provided by Adani during phase one of the due diligence.
The CS explained that the government cannot foretell if the emerging issues will affect Adani’s delivery since they are not related to the projects in Kenya.
“The question is, will these emerging reports affect the delivery of these projects? We can’t tell because they are not related to these projects. We can’t even vouch for their veracity from where we sit. Therefore, we will be engaging in speculation,” he said.
Also Read: JKIA-Linked Billionaire Adani Charged Over Bribery
Bribery Claims
Wandayi clarified that no instances of corruption or bribery occurred during the process of awarding the PPP project to Adani.
“There has been no case of corruption or bribery as far as this PIP of Adani Energy Solution is concerned up to this very moment,” he said.
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