President William Ruto’s administration has opened talks with Indian firm Adani Group over the amount of money that Kenya will pay as compensation for a flopped power deal.
These talks have been confirmed by the National Treasury’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Directorate. Although the Directorate has not announced the amount of money in compensation that the government is planning to pay the Adani Group, experts say the compensation amount will be Sh5 billion and above.
In 2024, the government of President Ruto had inked controversial deals with Adani Group that were widely condemned by the public. The deals included leases that would run for periods of up to 30 years.
In the electricity deal, the government had signed an agreement with Adani Energy Solutions to upgrade and expand part of the country’s power transmission network over a 30-year period. This deal was valued at Sh95.7 billion.
The Ministry of Energy had claimed that Adani Energy Solutions would secure the funding for the project through debt and equity. The repayment would take place over the 30-year project term.
The agreement indicated that Adani would handle both the development and management of the 400kV Gilgil-Thika-Malaa-Konza power transmission line, which covered a distance of 208.73 km.
The project would also include the construction of new substations at Gilgil, Thika, and Malaa, along with the extension at Konza. Additionally, Adani Energy Solutions was to build the 70 kilometre 132kV Menengai-Ol Kalou-Rumuruti transmission line that would have extended high-voltage power to Ol Kalou, and provide an alternative evacuation path for the Menengai geothermal complex.
“AESL will manage the transmission lines for 30 years, ensuring long-term sustainability and efficiency and thereafter transfer the project and all its assets to the Kenya Energy Transmission Company (KETRACO) ,” the Ministry of Energy had stated.
Apart from the electricity deal, President Ruto and his administration had offered the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to the Adani Group under a 30-year lease, in which the Indian conglomerate was run the airport. This deal had been made secretly and was broken to the public by a whistleblower who was identified as Nelson Amenya.
The Adani deals were verbally canceled by President Ruto after the company founder Gautam Adani was indicted in the United States in November 2024. The U.S charged controversial businessman over a multi-billion-dollar fraud and bribery scheme.
Adani was charged after investigations in the US found that he was part of a scheme that had orchestrated a $250m (Sh. 32.2 billion) bribery scheme.
The investigator also stated that Adani and his conspirators had concealed the scheme in order to raise money in the US.
“In the criminal charges that were filed on Wednesday [November 20, 2024] in New York, prosecutors alleged the tycoon and other senior executives had agreed to the payments to Indian officials to win contracts for his renewable energy company expected to yield more than $2 billion (Sh. 258 billion) in profits over 20 years,” a report by the BBC had stated.
The BBC had further quoted US authorities as saying that Adani and executives from his firms had executives raised $3 billion (Sh. 387 billion) in loans and bonds, including from US firms, on the backs of false and misleading statements related to the firm’s anti-bribery practices and policies, as well as reports of the bribery probe.
These charges had come barely days after the Ruto administration defended the Adani Group and its founder, with Transport Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir claiming that Adani was clean and had never previously been accused or charged with fraud.
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