Covid-19 billions beneficially doesn’t know her firm’s bank accounts
The owner of a company at the centre of a Sh4 billion scandal at the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa) told a parliamentary committee that she did not know the bank accounts of the firm.
Ivy Minyow told the Public Investments Committee (PIC) that she could neither re-member the name of the signatories of the accounts despite the fact money was being wired through the accounts.
Kilig Ltd received the highest amount in the tender involving the supply of Covid-19 related materials.“You want to tell the committee that in a company where you are the sole share-holder you cannot tell who the bank signatories are?” posed committee chairman Abdulswamad Nassir.
Minyow, 27, stunned the members after she revealed that she bought the firm for only Sh10,000 from former director Collins Wanjala.
A committee member Raphael Wanjala (Budalang’i) had to recuse himself from the hearing because he is Collins’ father.
“It was just a transfer from Wanjala to me, that explains the amount,” Minyow told the committee.
Kilig Limited was awarded a Sh4 billion tender for the procurement of 450,000 kits each valued at Sh9,000, through direct procurement, raising queries on how the tender was awarded.
Yesterday, Minyow insisted she could not remember all the banks her company had dealt with and could only tell of the build-ings housing them.
“I know of Equity Bank and SBM Bank. I wish to seek for time to go through my documents and see if I can trace some of the ones that you need,” she told the committee.
Nassir gave her five minutes to call her office and associates for the information but even after she came back she did not have anything to show.
Asked by Nassir who the signatories of the company accounts were, Minyow said she did not have an accurate answer.She further told the committee that she did not have any information on her Chinese business partners who sold the company shares to her.
It was at this juncture that Ruaraka MP Tom Kajwang’ warned her against shielding her partners in the company as she would suffer alone as they wine and dine at their homes.
“I sympathise with you. The advisers you are shielding will not be with you when you go down,” Kajwang’ told her.
Nassir told the witness that the commit-tee would not tire to find the truth no matter the efforts to frustrate members.The committee heard that Kilig Limited changed ownership five times before it was awarded the tender.
The company was registered on January 22, 2020, by two investors before it changed hands, bringing on board Minyow.
Form CR6 tabled before the committee by Registrar of Companies Sarah Ndung’u showed that as of April 15, 2020, the com-pany was owned by Willbroda Gachoka and Zhu Jinping, a Chinese investor.
They, however, transferred their shares to Collins Bush Wanjala, but on May 7, 2020, he resigned as a shareholder and sold his 1,000 shares to Minyow.
“According to the records relating to Kilig Limited held by the Registrar as at December 22, 2020, the names of the shareholders are Minyow with 1,000 shares,” Ndung’u told the committee.
But when she appeared before the committee last December, Minyow said she was the company lawyer when the com-pany was registered.
She said she registered the company on January 22 last year.Her company was handpicked and handed a Sh4 billion offer to supply hundreds of thousands of Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs).
