A company that is owned by the family of former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has bagged a lucrative tender to supply water to parts of Kisumu County. This is according to a report that appeared in Kenya’s leading newspaper, Daily Nation on Thursday. According to the report, Spectre International Limited won the tender following deliberations that were undertaken by a technical team made up of Kisumu Water and Sanitation Company, the county government, and the Lake Victoria South Water Works Development Agency.
“It was determined that Kiwasco has a deficit in Kisumu West and, therefore, the proposal for bulk water supply by Spectre International Limited will go a long way in augmenting the same,” the Daily Nation quoted a letter Kisumu County water executive Salmon Orimba. “Specter Iternational will help us since they already have structures to extract water from Lake Victoria and also have a treatment plant.”
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However, Bizna Kenya could not independently verify whether the Kisumu water company board has approved the project to be undertaken by Spectre International. The winning of the tender comes hot on the heels of a report that a firm linked with the Kenyatta Family had won a tender to supply wooden poles to Kenya Power at a cost of Sh. 111 million. The firm known as Timsales has previously been associated with the Rai family as well.
The winning of lucrative tenders by prominent political families in Kenya is bound to elicit public queries on whether due process if being followed, or whether the tenders are being offered in return for political loyalty.
In March this year, more than 116 former Spectre employees sued the firm for failure to pay them their dues totaling more than Sh. 150 million dating back to the year 2017. The ex-staff worked at Spectre International Limited located along Kisumu-Busia Road that has not been in operation since 2017.
Spectre International Ltd is part of the flagship business of Mr Odinga, but the company is different from his other firm East African Spectre, the liquefied petroleum gas cylinder manufacturer based in Nairobi.