hi all,

It appears that wonders will never cease to happen in this damn Kenya...why????? corruption! corruption! corruption everywhere...the convernment the other day decided to house its Vpig by constructing a house worth ksh 197m (a real palace) as per the original tender.

a couple of months into the construction,and the contructor was unable to perform and the contract had to be determined (terminated). at the time of termination the contractor had executed just above 30% of the value of works worth kshs 70m...the reasons given for the termination of the contract was that the contractor was executing shoddy work not in line with the specifications contained in the specification document.....the questions that arise here are: the 70m payment was composed of not less than ten payment valuations...by the very first two or three valuations,it should have been possible to detect the defective or shoddy works...why did the QS continue making payments even after part of those works had been condemned? Why didn't the architect stop the carrying out of any further works till the contractor remedied the unaccepatable works?...my guess is that these guys were already in the contractor's pocket!!!

Now we are being told that the tender for completion has been awarded with a value of ksh 383m. to start with if the construction goes smoothly with no major variations and assuming that all the provisional and contingency sums/amounts will be expended wholly,then the Vpig's house will have cost the tax payer a whoping ksh 453m (the tendered amount for completion plus the 70m already paid for the same project)...believe me this will not be the case because we will be told that there were some unmeasured and undermeasured works which could not be offset wholly by the provisional contingency sums and as such more funds had to be pumped in...we should therefore brace ourselves for total contract sum of ksh 500m and above!!!,but that is story for another day...

the leaked priced bills of quantities should be submitted and a forensic audit carried out to confirm if the prices and rates attached to various items of works were not manipulated behind the scenes...take for example installation,testing and commissioning of a small generator (i am quite sure it is not more than 50kva) at ksh 3m is already more than the supply and installation through to commissioning of a new 75kva generator!!! which are these staff houses and pump house costing a staggering ksh 57m!!! are they 10 bedroomed maissonetes ama namna gani!!

i believe that upto the level that the construction was halted,the completion should not have gone to the level that it is now in terms of funding,after all there is nothing to be demolished in the superstructure and i do not think that the average finishes for such a residential home should be that expensive....real money here will change hands...

you may wish to see the insight in this link: http://www.nation.co.ke/...4/-/um9ps7/-/index.html




NEVER TALK OF A RHINO IF THERE IS NO TREE NEAREBY - ZULU PROVERB