A parliamentary inquiry into billions spent on electricity line compensation is now set to escalate after lawmakers moved to call top energy officials over disputed payments flagged in a long-running audit.
The National Assembly Public Accounts Committee has decided to summon Principal Secretary for Energy Alex Wachira together with other senior officials after they failed to appear before the committee on Tuesday to respond to concerns raised in a forensic audit report on wayleave compensation.
The audit examines payments linked to seven donor-supported power transmission projects implemented by the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company. The committee, chaired by Tindi Mwale, said it will also bring in former principal secretaries as well as past managing directors and chief executive officers of KETRACO who were in office during the project period.
Former KETRACO chief executive Fernandes Barasa is among those expected to face the committee, alongside other accounting officers who oversaw the projects at different stages.
The audit covers 13 financial years, from 2010/11 to 2022/23. It shows that the wayleave compensation programme was set at Sh17.02 billion, with Sh4.03 billion still outstanding.
Lawmakers are now seeking clarity on whether the payments made were properly justified and whether the projects delivered value for public funds spent.
“As a Committee, we are committed to establishing the genuineness of the compensation claims and whether Kenyans obtained value for money from the projects,” said Mwale.
The committee further ordered that all officers who held accounting responsibility during the period must appear before it to respond to questions on how the compensation process was handled and how the projects were implemented.
The projects under review include the Ethiopia-Kenya transmission line, Kenya-Tanzania transmission line, and Kenya-Uganda transmission line. Others are the Kenya Power Transmission System Improvement Project, Turkwel-Ortum-Kitale line, Olkaria-Lessos line, and the Nairobi Ring Road transmission line.
Parliament now plans to use the hearings to establish how the funds were spent, verify the outstanding payments, and determine whether all procedures and laws were followed throughout the 13-year period.