Tag: Ketraco

KETRACO CEO Advert Marred By Controversies As Fears Grow That Kipkemoi Kibias Is A Predetermined Candidate

In what has rapidly crystallised into one of the most brazen governance scandals to hit Kenya’s energy sector in recent memory, the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company — KETRACO — has been forced to cancel its advertisement for a substantive Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer in circumstances that point, with disturbing clarity, to a recruitment process that was rigged before it began.

The cancellation, announced in a terse one-paragraph public notice on April 23, 2026, came barely seventy-two hours after a Nairobi law firm fired a blistering demand letter at the board, threatening immediate court action unless the illegal advert was withdrawn.

The board, rather than defending its position, capitulated without so much as an explanation. The silence is deafening — and for many Kenyans who have watched state corporations descend into patronage swamps, it speaks louder than any press statement ever could.

At the centre of this unfolding scandal is a single, explosive question: was the entire CEO recruitment exercise designed from the outset to deliver one predetermined outcome — the formal installation of Eng. Kipkemoi Kibias, who has held the acting CEO title since September 2025? The evidence accumulating around this recruitment attempt, from an illegally inflated qualifications bar to a truncated advertisement window, strongly suggests the answer is yes.

The board, rather than defending its position, capitulated without so much as an explanation. The silence is deafening.

THE ADVERT THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED

KETRACO published its advertisement for the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer — Job Grade KET 1 — in the print media on April 7, 2026. On its face, it was a routine public sector job advert. Beneath the surface, it was a legal catastrophe waiting to happen.

Kenya Insights has reviewed the advertisement and the subsequent legal challenge in detail, and the problems are numerous, layered and, taken together, difficult to explain as anything other than deliberate manipulation.

The most explosive allegation concerns the qualification requirements the board inserted into the advert.

The Government-Owned Enterprises Act, No. 25 of 2025 — the very law Parliament passed to clean up Kenya’s chronically abused parastatal appointment system — sets out the minimum statutory qualifications for CEO appointments at state corporations in unambiguous terms under Section 22(3).

Those requirements are a degree in a relevant field from a recognised Kenyan university, at least ten years of relevant work experience, a minimum of five years in a senior management role, and compliance with the integrity requirements of Chapter Six of the Constitution.

That is the complete list. Parliament did not add to it.

The Mwongozo Code of Governance for State Corporations, the long-standing ethical blueprint for parastatal conduct, is equally silent on anything beyond those parameters.

Yet the KETRACO board, in its wisdom, went further.

The advert reportedly demanded a Master’s degree as a mandatory baseline — an elevation above the statutory degree requirement — and set significantly higher thresholds for years of experience and management tenure.

And then there was the Credit Reference Bureau requirement.

The board demanded that any successful candidate present a current CRB clearance report from an approved bureau.

This requirement appears nowhere in the GOE Act, nowhere in Mwongozo, and nowhere in any public service regulation applicable to this class of appointment. It was inserted by the board on its own volition, without legal authority.

The CRB clause was not an oversight. It was architecture — a carefully constructed filter designed to thin the competitive field.

The CRB clause was not an oversight. It was architecture — a carefully constructed filter designed to thin the competitive field. In an economy where millions of ordinary Kenyans carry CRB listings for loans as modest as mobile phone credit facilities, demanding a clean bureau report as a gatekeeping instrument for a CEO appointment is a crude but effective way to disqualify candidates without appearing to target them by name.

The suspicion, now openly circulating among energy sector insiders and gaining traction in public discourse, is that Eng. Kibias — a career KETRACO insider who rose through the system as General Manager for System Operation and Power Management — could sail through such scrutiny in a way that some external competitors might not.

Beyond the qualifications issue, the demand letter received by the KETRACO board flagged a second, distinct procedural violation: the advertisement ran for only twenty days, from April 7 to April 27, 2026.

The Public Service Commission Human Resource Policies and Procedures Manual mandates that vacancies at this level be advertised for a minimum of twenty-one days.

The KETRACO advert fell one day short of that statutory floor.

One day short — and yet that single day is the difference between a lawful process and an illegal one. Coming on top of the illegal qualification additions, this shortfall can only be read as evidence of a board that was in a hurry, and was not particularly worried about getting the details right because it did not expect to be challenged.

THE LAW FIRM THAT PULLED THE PIN

The challenge came on April 22, 2026, when Kenya Electricity Transmission Company Ltd received a formal demand letter addressed to the Chairman, Capt. Mohamed M. Abdi, and copied to Cabinet Secretary for Energy Opiyo Wandayi.

The letter was from a Nairobi law firm writing on behalf of a client, and was signed by Francis Awino.

The firm’s identity and the identity of its client are significant: this was not a disgruntled applicant lodging a personal grievance, but a structured legal intervention with specific constitutional and statutory anchors.

The letter was systematic and forensic.

It identified the legal framework — the GOE Act 2025 — specified the precise statutory minimum thresholds under Section 22(3), enumerated the ways in which the KETRACO advert materially deviated from those thresholds, flagged the twenty-day advertising period as falling short of the twenty-one-day minimum, and declared the entire advertisement fundamentally defective, tainted with illegality and liable to challenge.

The letter invoked constitutional principles: fairness, transparency, competitiveness and the rule of law.

It then gave the board a seven-day ultimatum — running to April 29, 2026 — to withdraw the advert and re-advertise the position in full compliance with the law.

The letter left no room for negotiation.

It stated plainly that the board lacked the legal mandate to alter or dilute the statutory minimum requirements, and that any deviation from those requirements was unlawful, null and void. It warned that failure to comply would result in the immediate institution of appropriate legal proceedings, at the board’s sole risk as to costs and consequences.

The KETRACO board did not wait to be taken to court. It cancelled the advert within a day. That speed of compliance is itself an admission.

The KETRACO board did not wait to be taken to court. It cancelled the advert within a day. That speed of compliance is itself an admission — that the board knew, or was advised by counsel, that it could not defend the advert in court.

Any board that was confident in the lawfulness of its advertisement would have sought legal opinion, issued a public rebuttal, or at minimum waited out the deadline before making a decision. The board did none of those things. It folded.

THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE: KIPKEMOI KIBIAS

Eng. Kipkemoi Kibias

Who is Eng. Kipkemoi Kibias, and why does his name keep surfacing at the heart of this crisis? Kibias is a career KETRACO employee who worked his way up through the company’s technical ranks to the position of General Manager for System Operation and Power Management.

When Dr. John Mativo was unceremoniously dismissed from the substantive CEO role in September 2025 — after a tenure of approximately two and a half years that ended without public explanation, though credible reports pointed to an Sh6 billion audit cloud over his stewardship — Kibias was appointed acting head.

He has held that position for seven months, through a period of mounting pressure on the company’s leadership and escalating legal challenges to the board.

The acting CEO position is a temporary arrangement under any reading of the GOE Act, and the law imposes duties on boards to move with reasonable urgency to fill substantive vacancies.

That KETRACO took seven months to even publish an advert, and then published one so legally defective it had to be pulled within days, raises questions that go beyond administrative incompetence.

Those who believe the process was designed to produce a predetermined winner argue that the delay and the defective advert served a single purpose: to create the appearance of an open competition while engineering conditions that would leave Kibias as the only viable candidate.

The CRB filter is the most discussed mechanism in this regard, but it is not the only one.

The elevated academic requirements — a Master’s degree rather than the statutory degree — could also function as a filter, particularly if Kibias holds a Master’s that some potential competitors do not.

The shortened advertisement window reduced the number of qualified applicants who would have had time to prepare competitive applications.

And the insider status of the acting CEO gives him an inherent advantage in any process where the board controls the evaluation criteria and the interview structure.

Seven months of leadership limbo, and when the board finally acted, it produced a document so riddled with illegalities that it lasted less than three weeks.

A BOARD UNDER SIEGE

The KETRACO board under Capt. Abdi’s chairmanship has not had a quiet tenure.

The CEO advert debacle is the latest in a series of controversies that have drawn the company into repeated litigation and public scrutiny.

Earlier this year, the High Court struck out a petition by public interest activist Benjamin Okumu that had sought to block the reappointment of three KETRACO board directors.

The petition was dismissed on a technicality involving the petitioner’s counsel, leaving the underlying governance questions unanswered rather than adjudicated.

The company has also faced internal legal battles, including a successful court challenge by a senior KETRACO manager who obtained judicial relief against compulsory leave imposed under the Kibias administration.

That case raised questions about the management culture at KETRACO under the acting CEO and the board’s oversight of personnel decisions.

There have been separate allegations of ethnic imbalance in the composition of senior appointments — a charge that, if substantiated, would engage constitutional requirements on regional and ethnic inclusivity in public service hiring.

Layered on top of all this is the unresolved matter of John Mativo’s dismissal. Mativo served as KETRACO’s substantive CEO from roughly 2023 until his removal in September 2025.

The board has never publicly explained the grounds for his exit, despite the serious nature of the allegations reportedly underpinning it, including audit findings pointing to irregularities running into billions of shillings.

An organisation that cannot account for what happened under its previous substantive head — and that simultaneously struggles to fill that head’s position through a lawful process — is an organisation in deep institutional crisis.

WHAT THE LAW REQUIRES AND WHAT THE BOARD DELIVERED

Section 22(3) of the Government-Owned Enterprises Act, 2025 is clear and exhaustive.

The minimum qualifications for appointment as CEO of a state corporation are: a degree in a relevant field from a university recognised in Kenya; at least ten years of relevant work experience in a relevant field; service in a senior management position for a period of at least five years; and compliance with the requirements of Chapter Six of the Constitution on leadership and integrity.

The Mwongozo Code complements this framework with governance principles around transparency, merit and competitive recruitment, without adding to the substantive qualification bar.

What the KETRACO board delivered was a document that elevated the statutory degree requirement to a Master’s degree, significantly raised the years of experience requirements beyond the statutory floors, and inserted a mandatory CRB clearance — a requirement with no basis in law.

It ran the advertisement for twenty days rather than the legally required twenty-one.

It did all of this for the CEO position of a company that controls Kenya’s national electricity transmission backbone, that has billions of taxpayer shillings flowing through its capital projects, and that operates under intense scrutiny from donors, regulatory agencies and the public.

These are not the errors of a distracted administrator who misread a regulation.

These are the choices of a board that believed it could rewrite the rules and get away with it.

THE GOE ACT WAS MEANT TO END EXACTLY THIS

The Government-Owned Enterprises Act, 2025 did not emerge from nowhere. It was Parliament’s response to decades of documented abuse in parastatal appointments — ghost qualifications, politically connected appointees, ethnic balancing at the expense of merit, and boards that operated as extensions of executive patronage networks rather than independent governance bodies.

The Act was designed to codify minimum standards, remove discretion from individual boards, and create a legal framework enforceable by the courts.

It was supposed to make it impossible for a board to simply invent qualifications for a CEO position.

Within months of its passage, the KETRACO board appears to have treated the Act as an inconvenience to be worked around.

The insertion of the CRB requirement, the elevation of the academic threshold, the shortened advertising window — none of these were accidents of ignorance. Boards of state corporations have access to legal counsel.

They know, or are duty-bound to know, what the law requires.

The only conclusion consistent with the available evidence is that the board made a deliberate choice to exceed its mandate, gambled that no one would notice or challenge the advert in time, and lost that gamble.

Parliament passed a law to end this. Within months, KETRACO’s board treated it as an inconvenience to be worked around.

The April 27 deadline in the demand letter has now effectively been overtaken by events: the board cancelled the advert before the deadline expired, technically complying with the first of the two demands — withdrawal of the illegal advertisement.

The second demand — a fresh re-advertisement in strict compliance with the Constitution, the GOE Act 2025, and all applicable regulations and policies — remains outstanding.

That re-advertisement has not yet been published.

The coming weeks will test whether the KETRACO board has genuinely recalibrated its approach or whether it intends to attempt a second, more carefully disguised version of the same exercise.

The Energy Cabinet Secretary and the National Treasury, which serves as the principal shareholder in KETRACO under the GOE framework, have an urgent responsibility to intervene and ensure that the re-advertisement process is conducted in strict conformity with the law, with independent oversight, and with a timeline that gives qualified Kenyans a genuine opportunity to compete.

Whether the law firm that sent the demand letter and its unnamed client intend to monitor compliance — and return to court if the re-advertisement replicates the illegalities of the first — remains to be seen.

What is clear is that the legal architecture now exists to challenge any further attempt to manipulate this process, and that Kenya’s judiciary has shown, in case after case, a willingness to scrutinise parastatal appointments that do not meet constitutional and statutory standards.

Eng. Kibias, for his part, may well be a genuinely qualified candidate for the substantive CEO role.

That question cannot be answered here.

What can be said is that if he is appointed at the end of a process as tainted as the one just aborted, his tenure will be burdened from day one by the suspicion that the board engineered his ascent — and that suspicion will undermine not only his personal authority but the institutional credibility of a company whose work is essential to Kenya’s electricity future.

KETRACO deserves a CEO whose legitimacy is beyond question. Kenya’s grid cannot run on a mandate manufactured in a boardroom.

The KETRACO board has had its reckoning. What it does next will determine whether it has learned anything from it.

April 25, 2026
Questions As KETRACO Deletes Details of Sh24 Billion Deal To Power SGR Trains That Never Was

In what appears to be a desperate attempt to erase the evidence of yet another white elephant project, the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company Limited has quietly deleted key pages from its website detailing the Sh24.2 billion contract meant to electrify Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway.

The vanished webpage, which once proudly announced the January 2018 signing of a $240 million deal with China Electric Power Equipment and Technology Company Limited, promised that electric trains would be running on the Mombasa-Nairobi line by 2021.

Screenshot of the deleted page.

It is now 2026, and the SGR still chugs along on expensive diesel, belching fumes and burning through operational costs that were supposed to have been slashed by cleaner, cheaper electricity.

The deletion raises uncomfortable questions about transparency and accountability at KETRACO, coming at a time when Auditor General Nancy Gathungu has exposed a staggering Sh4 billion in unpaid compensation to landowners whose properties were acquired for various transmission projects across the country.

The SGR electrification project appears to have joined a long list of ambitious infrastructure promises that evaporated into thin air, taking billions of taxpayer shillings with them.

THE GRAND PROMISE

When then KETRACO Managing Director Fernandes Barasa put pen to paper on that January morning in 2018, the mood was celebratory.

Government officials and Chinese contractors posed for photographs, marking what was hailed as a major step toward modernizing Kenya’s flagship infrastructure project.

The contract stipulated construction of 14 substations along the 472-kilometer stretch between the port city and the capital, with completion expected within 28 months.

Barasa, writing in a local daily at the time, painted an ambitious picture of the project’s transformative potential.

He spoke of zero carbon emissions through geothermal-powered transmission lines, of faster trains, of economic corridors blooming along the railway line, of cheaper transport costs for the common mwananchi. The article read more like a manifesto than a sober technical assessment of the project’s viability.

But skeptics existed even then. Kenya Railways Corporation Managing Director Atanas Maina had publicly expressed doubts about the country’s capacity to sustain an electric railway, citing unreliable power supply and lack of financing. His warnings, dismissed at the time as pessimism, would prove prescient.

THE MAN AT THE CENTRE

Fernandes Barasa’s tenure at KETRACO has been nothing if not controversial.

Fernandes Barasa

The current Kakamega Governor, who resigned from the transmission company in February 2022 just before appearing before Parliament’s Public Investment Committee, left behind a trail of questionable deals and unexplained losses.

The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission has repeatedly summoned him to answer for the Sh18 billion lost to penalties in the Lake Turkana Wind Power project, where delays in completing transmission lines cost taxpayers dearly.

He spent two marathon days at EACC headquarters in November 2022, grilled for over 12 hours each day about suspected fraudulent transactions and mismanagement during his watch.

Then there was the Sh785 million in excess payments to Lake Turkana Wind Power that Parliament wanted explained.

And mysterious payments to wrong accounts that nobody seemed able to trace. Barasa resigned strategically, citing constitutional requirements for public servants seeking elective office, but many saw it as a convenient escape from accountability.

Now add to this litany the ghost of the SGR electrification project, a Sh24.2 billion contract that produced nothing except deleted web pages and unanswered questions.

THE CURIOUS CLARIFICATION

In what reads like an admission of deception, KETRACO issued a curious “clarification” shortly after the initial euphoria of the 2018 contract signing.

The agency quietly revealed that what had been trumpeted as a done deal was merely a commercial contract, not a financing agreement.

The contract would only become effective after the National Treasury signed a financing agreement with prospective lenders.

That financing agreement, it turns out, never materialized.

“KETRACO has not borrowed any loan for the electrification of the SGR Project,” the agency admitted in its damage control statement. This was a far cry from the triumphant tones of Barasa’s opinion piece that had celebrated the project as if trains were about to start running on electricity the next day.

The question that nobody at KETRACO wants to answer is simple but devastating.

Why announce a Sh24.2 billion contract with such fanfare if the money to implement it did not exist? Was this a calculated deception meant to burnish the agency’s image, or was it incompetence of breathtaking proportions?

COMPARATIVE EMBARRASSMENT

The failure of Kenya’s SGR electrification looks even more embarrassing when compared to regional peers. Ethiopia built a 750-kilometer electric railway line from Addis Ababa to Djibouti at a cost of $3.4 billion and completed it in 2016. Morocco’s high-speed rail, Africa’s first, connects Tangier and Casablanca at speeds of up to 320 kilometers per hour and has been operational since 2018.

Even Tanzania, often dismissed as playing catch-up to Kenya’s economy, is planning its SGR with electrification built into the original design.

Meanwhile, Uganda’s planned electric SGR threatens to create an operational nightmare for Kenya. As things stand, Kenya’s diesel locomotives would not be able to operate seamlessly in Ugandan territory if Kampala proceeds with its electric standard.

The integration problems this creates could effectively lock Kenya out of the very regional connectivity that the SGR was meant to facilitate.

Kenya spent a staggering Sh447 billion on a 472-kilometer diesel railway while Ethiopia spent Sh346 billion on a 750-kilometer electric one. The mathematics of this disparity should trouble every Kenyan taxpayer.

WHERE DID THE MONEY GO?

The bigger question hovering over the deleted webpage is not just about a failed electrification project.

It is about the entire ecosystem of inflated contracts, dubious procurement processes, and vanishing funds that has characterized Kenya’s infrastructure development under Chinese financing.

KETRACO’s own contradictory statements raise red flags. If the contract signed in 2018 was merely commercial and not backed by actual financing, what were the Sh24.2 billion meant to cover? Who conducted the due diligence before the signing ceremony? Who approved the public announcement of a deal that hinged on financing that had not been secured?

The then transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia effectively killed the project in 2018 when he told Parliament that Kenya lacked both the guaranteed power supply and the financial capacity to support such expensive infrastructure. “We need at least 80 percent guaranteed supply to even think of upgrading SGR to an electric rail,” he said, adding that KETRACO itself lacked the equipment and expertise for the job.

These realities were known in January 2018 when Barasa was signing contracts and writing opinion pieces.

Yet the charade continued, with taxpayers none the wiser about the technical and financial impossibilities standing in the way of implementation.

THE PATTERN OF DECEIT

The deleted KETRACO webpage is not an isolated incident.

It fits a troubling pattern of government agencies announcing grand projects, holding expensive launch ceremonies, and then quietly shelving the initiatives when public attention wanes.

The evidence of the initial promises is scrubbed from official records, leaving citizens with no paper trail to hold anyone accountable.

This approach thrives on short public memory and bureaucratic opacity. By the time questions start being asked, the officials responsible have moved on to other positions, or like Barasa, have ascended to elected office where they enjoy political protection from prosecution.

The SGR itself continues to hemorrhage money. Recent reports indicate the railway made billions in losses as it struggles to attract sufficient cargo and passenger traffic to justify its existence.

Adding the cost of diesel fuel to already bloated operational expenses only compounds the financial disaster.

An electric railway, powered by Kenya’s abundant geothermal energy, would have addressed at least part of this problem.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

As KETRACO’s website administrators quietly hit the delete button, hoping the embarrassing history would disappear into the digital ether, several questions cry out for answers.

Who authorized the deletion of the webpage? Was this done with the knowledge and approval of current management, or was it a rogue decision by lower-level staff trying to cover tracks? Why delete the page now, eight years after the contract was signed, unless there are new pressures or investigations that make the existence of that evidence problematic?

What happened to the 14 substations that were supposed to be constructed? Was any preliminary work done? Were any funds disbursed to the Chinese contractor? If so, how much, and where did that money go if no substations were built?

Where is China Electric Power Equipment and Technology Company Limited in all this? Did they attempt to hold the Kenyan government to the terms of the contract? Did they demand compensation for a contract that was signed but never implemented? Or was the entire thing understood from the beginning to be a paper exercise, a smoke-and-mirrors show to create the illusion of progress?

THE SILENCE IS DEAFENING

Citizen Weekly sought comment from KETRACO’s current Acting Managing Director Kipkemoi Kibias about the deleted webpage and the fate of the electrification contract.

Eng. Kipkemoi Kibias, Acting Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer

Our calls and emails went unanswered.

The agency’s head of communications, Winnie Osika, who has been defending KETRACO’s record on the delayed landowner compensation, did not respond to specific questions about the SGR project.

Fernandes Barasa, now serving as Kakamega Governor and recently confirmed as ODM county chairman, was equally unreachable for comment. His office referred us to KETRACO, saying he no longer had responsibilities for the agency’s operations.

China Electric Power Equipment and Technology Company Limited has no public presence in Kenya beyond that 2018 signing ceremony. Their local representatives could not be traced, and the company has not issued any statement about the failed project.

This wall of silence is its own answer. When questioned about regular operational matters, government agencies are quick to issue statements and clarifications. When the questions touch on potential scandals involving missing billions, suddenly nobody is available to speak.

The deleted KETRACO webpage is a small detail in a much larger story about governance failure and the waste of public resources.

It represents the gap between what government tells citizens and what actually happens. It shows how easily promises can be made, contracts signed, and money allocated, all without any intention or capacity to deliver.

For ordinary Kenyans, the message is clear and disheartening. The SGR they were told would revolutionize transport will continue running on expensive diesel.

The cleaner, faster, cheaper electric trains will remain a pipe dream. The Sh24.2 billion that could have gone to schools, hospitals, or roads has vanished into the black hole of abandoned projects and dubious contracts.

Meanwhile, Barasa has moved on to bigger things, wielding political power in Kakamega while dodging corruption investigators.

The Chinese contractors have presumably found other countries with more reliable governments to do business with. KETRACO continues announcing new projects, hoping nobody notices the graveyard of previous promises.

The deleted webpage is gone, but the questions it raises will not disappear so easily. Kenyans deserve to know what happened to their Sh24.2 billion. They deserve accountability for the grand promises that turned out to be lies.

They deserve an honest explanation of why, eight years later, they are still watching diesel trains crawl along tracks that were supposed to be powered by clean electricity.

Until those answers come, the digital ghost of that deleted webpage will continue to haunt KETRACO and everyone involved in this shabby affair. You can delete the evidence, but you cannot delete the truth.

This investigation is ongoing. Kenya Insights continues to seek responses from KETRACO, the National Treasury, and other relevant parties. Updates will be published as new information becomes available.

SIDEBAR: THE COST OF BROKEN PROMISES

The SGR electrification debacle is estimated to have cost Kenya:

– Sh24.2 billion in the announced contract value

– Undisclosed amounts in preliminary studies and consultations

– Lost savings from continued diesel operations vs. projected electric costs

– Environmental costs from continued carbon emissions

– Reputational damage affecting other infrastructure projects

– The opportunity cost of Sh24.2 billion that could have been invested elsewhere

The human cost includes:

– Landowners still waiting for compensation from KETRACO’s various projects

– Citizens facing higher transport costs than projected

– Communities along the SGR corridor denied promised development opportunities

– Loss of public trust in government infrastructure promises

Total damage: Incalculable, but devastating to Kenya’s development aspirations

February 4, 2026
Sh300 Billion Insurance Cover Scandal Rocks Ketraco As Senior Officials Demand Huge Bribes

Kenya’s power transmission backbone is hanging by a thread as the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company faces its gravest crisis yet, with over Sh300 billion worth of critical national infrastructure left completely uninsured for more than five months while senior officials allegedly orchestrate an elaborate kickback scheme that has brought the insurance tender process to a grinding halt.

The scandal, which has sent shockwaves through the energy sector and raised alarm bells at the highest levels of government, centers on explosive allegations that senior Ketraco operatives demanded such exorbitant bribes from Fidelity Shield Insurance, the company that legitimately won the tender to insure Ketraco’s vast asset portfolio, that the insurer reportedly wired back the contracted funds rather than participate in what insiders describe as an institutionalized extortion racket.

At stake is nothing less than the security of Kenya’s entire electricity transmission network. Ketraco’s massive asset base includes the Sh40 billion Suswa substation, the Sh25 billion Isinya hub, the Sh10 billion Mariakani station, alongside dozens of other substations and hundreds of kilometers of high-voltage transmission lines strung across the country on steel pylons.

The company also maintains a 24-hour standby aircraft and other capital-intensive assets that are now operating without any insurance protection whatsoever.

According to documents obtained by investigators and shared with consumer watchdog Cofek, the insurance cover lapsed at the end of June 2025, leaving taxpayers exposed to catastrophic financial risk should any accident, fire, or structural failure occur at any of these critical installations.

For a state corporation that sits at the very heart of Kenya’s energy infrastructure, this is not merely administrative negligence but what experts are calling willful sabotage of public interest.

The saga began when Fidelity Shield Insurance emerged as the successful bidder for the insurance tender and duly signed the contract to provide comprehensive cover for Ketraco’s assets.

The performance bond remains intact and the contract between Ketraco and Fidelity is still legally active, making the subsequent events all the more puzzling and troubling.

Multiple sources within the energy sector say that after signing, Fidelity was confronted with kickback demands from senior Ketraco operatives that were so shocking in their scale that the insurance company made the extraordinary decision to return the funds rather than comply with what they viewed as criminal demands.

But the scandal doesn’t end there.

Rather than address the impasse or investigate the allegations, Ketraco insiders allegedly turned to Madison General Insurance, reportedly persuading Fidelity to seek Ketraco’s concurrence to cede part of the insurance risk to Madison.

This maneuver effectively created a retrofit joint venture arrangement despite the fact that the original contract had been awarded exclusively to Fidelity through a competitive tender process.

Industry experts warn that this looks less like legitimate risk-sharing and more like risk-shifting designed to accommodate and distribute kickback demands among a wider network of beneficiaries.

The plot thickens with revelations about the individuals allegedly at the center of this scheme.

Deep concerns are mounting about what insiders describe as an ethnic cartel dominating both the Ketraco board and top executive management.

This concentration of individuals from the same community is believed to be enabling the coercion, collusion, and systematic manipulation of procurement processes, including the stalled insurance arrangement that has left the nation’s power infrastructure dangerously exposed.

Perhaps most puzzling is why the multi-billion shilling insurance portfolio was shifted from its natural home in the procurement or finance directorate to the Human Resources directorate.

Board director Mercylynate Rotich, who oversees Human Resources, allegedly orchestrated this unusual transfer, placing the enormous insurance responsibility under the supervision of a youthful General Manager, Linda Korir, who is now accused by multiple sources of spearheading the demand for hefty kickbacks from insurance providers.

Mercylynate Chepkirui Rotich, KETRACO Director

The implications are staggering.

With uninsured power stations, transmission lines, and aircraft, Ketraco is literally one accident away from a national economic catastrophe.

A fire at any major substation, structural failure of transmission towers, or incident involving the standby aircraft could plunge the country into billions of shillings in unrecoverable losses, all of which would ultimately be borne by taxpayers.

The ongoing insurance debacle represents not just mismanagement but what can only be described as a direct assault on public interest and national security.

The scandal has caught the attention of the highest offices in government. Head of Public Service Felix Koskei has formally asked Energy Cabinet Secretary Opiyo Wandayi to shed light on the alarming development and provide explanations for how a state corporation responsible for such critical infrastructure could be allowed to operate uninsured for over five months.

Neither Wandayi nor Ketraco acting CEO Kipkemoi Kibias responded to inquiries seeking their comment on the explosive allegations.

This insurance scandal is just the latest in a series of procurement controversies that have plagued Ketraco in recent months.

In September, the company’s then-CEO Engineer John Mativo was dramatically sacked following a separate Sh400 million transformer procurement scandal in which a massive 70-tonne transformer worth hundreds of millions of shillings was transported from Mombasa port without proper contractual arrangements or insurance cover, fell off the transporter’s truck, and was completely destroyed, representing a staggering loss to taxpayers.

That incident, involving a critical component for the strategic Turkwel-Ortum-Kitale transmission project meant to improve power supply across Western Kenya, highlighted the apparent culture of procurement irregularities that has taken root at the state corporation.

The destroyed transformer has delayed critical improvements to the national grid and left several counties in Western Kenya without the enhanced power quality and reliability they desperately need.

The Insurance Regulatory Authority now faces mounting pressure to act decisively.

Questions are being asked about what sanctions will be imposed on both Fidelity Shield Insurance and Madison General Insurance for their roles in this murky affair.

However, many observers argue that the real culprits are the Ketraco officials who allegedly created this crisis through their extortion demands, leaving the nation’s power infrastructure vulnerable while they pursued personal enrichment.

The scandal exposes deeper governance failures within Kenya’s state corporations, where high-value infrastructure projects carry both strategic national importance and, it seems, outsized opportunities for corruption.

With Ketraco already dealing with the fallout from cancelled contracts including the controversial Adani Group deal affecting several key transmission projects, the insurance crisis could not have come at a worse time for the company’s credibility.

As the investigation continues and pressure mounts for accountability, the focus remains squarely on board director Mercylynate Rotich and Human Resources General Manager Linda Korir, both of whom have been identified by multiple sources as key figures in the alleged kickback scheme.

The longer this impasse persists, the more Kenyans remain dangerously exposed to potential catastrophe.

For now, Kenya’s Sh300 billion power transmission empire continues to operate in the shadows, unprotected and vulnerable, while a handful of officials allegedly hold the nation’s energy security hostage to their greed.

The question on everyone’s lips is simple: how long will the government allow this reckless endangerment of public assets to continue?

December 3, 2025
Spanish Firm Unable To Raise Sh185 Million Security Cost In Sh10 Billion Debt Case With Ketraco

A high-stakes battle between Kenya Electricity Transmission Company and a Spanish contractor has taken a dramatic turn after it emerged the foreign firm could not raise the Sh185 million security for costs that Ketraco demanded in the Sh10 billion debt saga.

The revelation came as the High Court dismissed Ketraco’s application, ruling that the request was nothing more than an attempt to stall an already long-delayed liquidation process.

The case traces back to 2016 when Ketraco terminated two EPC contracts awarded to Spanish engineering giant Instalaciones Inabensa for the construction of a power line and a substation.

The contractor moved to arbitration, and in 2019, the tribunal found Ketraco in breach and awarded Inabensa €37 million plus interest and costs, an amount that has since ballooned to more than €69 million and Sh195 million.

Ketraco exhausted every possible legal route to overturn the award.

It lost at the High Court, failed at the Court of Appeal, and hit a dead end at the Supreme Court.

With nowhere left to run, the State corporation now faces the threat of liquidation filed by C.A. Infraestructuras T & I SLU, the company that took over the decree through a 2023 deed of subrogation.

Cornered, Ketraco asked the court to compel the Spanish firm to deposit Sh185 million as security, arguing that the company has no known assets in Kenya and therefore posed a risk if the liquidation petition collapses.

But the court flatly rejected the plea, pointing out that a creditor holding such a colossal decree cannot be described as a litigant who is unable to meet a potential costs order.

It ruled that demanding more money from a party already owed billions would be a clear injustice.

The judge noted that the Spanish contractor had demonstrated it is a financially sound international player and that Ketraco presented no evidence to the contrary.

The court added that should Ketraco eventually win and be awarded costs, the amount can be offset against the massive decretal sum the creditor is already entitled to.

This latest blow piles more pressure on the power transmission agency, which is already grappling with billions in unresolved claims including payouts tied to land disputes and terminated contracts.

The Sh10 billion award now hangs over Ketraco like a guillotine, raising questions about the State’s exposure to costly disputes in major infrastructure projects.

If the liquidation petition proceeds successfully, Ketraco could become one of the most high-profile State entities to face such a consequence arising purely from a commercial dispute that dragged on for nearly a decade.

November 30, 2025
Sh400 Million Transformer Procurement Scam Leads to John Mativo’s Dramatic Sacking From KETRACO

The dramatic downfall of Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (KETRACO) Managing Director John Mativo has exposed a web of procurement irregularities that cost taxpayers approximately Sh400 million and raised serious questions about oversight in Kenya’s energy sector.

Dr. Mativo, who was unceremoniously sacked on September 19, 2025, nearly a year before completing his three-year term, fell victim to a scandal involving the botched transportation of a critical 70-tonne transformer that was destined to improve power supply across Western Kenya.

The saga began with KETRACO’s procurement of two high-voltage transformers for the strategic 220 kV Turkwel–Ortum–Kitale transmission project.

While one 40-tonne unit was successfully installed at the Ortum sub-station, the larger 220/132 kV, 90 MVA transformer worth Sh400 million met a catastrophic end during transportation from Mombasa port.

Sources familiar with the matter reveal that the massive transformer, earmarked for installation at the Kitale sub-station, was transported without proper contractual arrangements or insurance cover.

The expensive equipment reportedly fell off the transporter’s truck during the journey, rendering it completely destroyed and representing a staggering loss to taxpayers.

The incident triggered a comprehensive investigation that traced the procurement irregularities back to KETRACO’s senior management.

Board meeting sources confirmed that the transportation arrangement lacked the fundamental safeguards required for such high-value, sensitive equipment.

A senior Ministry of Energy official, while confirming disciplinary action, emphasized that state corporations must strictly adhere to procurement protocols.

“Management is expected to tick all the boxes before awarding. The ministry doesn’t micro-manage agencies at all. They procure end to end—from floating the tender, evaluating, awarding—and all that should be followed to the letter,” the official stated.

The investigation revealed a pattern of procedural violations that extended beyond the transportation mishap.

A senior procurement official had already been suspended before Mativo’s turn came as the accounting officer ultimately responsible for the company’s operations.

When contacted about the allegations, Mativo appeared evasive, initially claiming he “didn’t understand the questions” before abruptly ending the conversation.

He maintained that the disputed procurement “had not reached a contract stage,” a claim that investigators found difficult to reconcile with the actual transportation and subsequent destruction of the equipment.

The scandal has broader implications for Kenya’s energy infrastructure development. The destroyed transformer was crucial for improving power quality and reliability across several counties in Western Kenya, and its loss has delayed critical improvements to the national grid.

Mativo’s exit comes at a particularly sensitive time for KETRACO, which has been aggressively pursuing major transmission projects through Public Private Partnerships.

The company was already dealing with the fallout from the cancelled Adani Group contract, which had affected several key projects including the 208.73-kilometre Gilgil-Thika-Malaa-Konza transmission line.

The board of directors, led by Chairman Captain Mohamed Abdi, announced Kipkemoi Kibias as the acting Managing Director while recruitment for a substantive replacement proceeds.

Kibias, who previously served as General Manager for System Operation & Power Management, holds specialized qualifications in nuclear power plant engineering.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that attempts were made to save Mativo’s position through questionable means, with sources indicating that between Sh20 million and Sh50 million could have changed hands to prevent his removal.

However, these efforts ultimately failed as the board moved decisively to address the procurement scandal.

The Mativo case underscores the ongoing challenges in Kenya’s state corporation governance, where high-value infrastructure projects carry both strategic national importance and significant opportunities for corruption.

As investigations continue, the incident serves as a stark reminder of the need for robust oversight mechanisms in the country’s critical energy infrastructure development.

For KETRACO, the priority now shifts to rebuilding institutional credibility while continuing to deliver on Kenya’s ambitious power transmission agenda.

The company’s ability to learn from this expensive mistake will determine whether similar procurement scandals can be prevented in the future.

The Sh400 million loss represents more than just financial waste; it symbolizes the cost of weak institutional governance in a sector critical to Kenya’s economic development aspirations.

September 21, 2025
Court Freezes A Ketraco’s Employee Account Holding Sh58M

A senior manager at Ketraco has suffered a setback after Sh58 million in his bank account was frozen.

Justice Esther N. Maina froze various bank accounts belonging to Peter Maina Njehia with total amount of Sh 58,601,915.9.

The court blocked Njehia from transferring or withdrawing money including Sh13, 557,385. 00 which is being held as share capital at stima sacco ltd, Sh11, 913,750.00 being held as deposit at Alpa, stima sacco, Sh10 million held in the shares account among others held in the name of Peter Njehia.

Justice Maina issued the orders following an urgent application filed by the EACC which argued that the money could be proceeds of crime.

The court orders have stopped Maina from withdrawing, or transacting in the said amounts until further orders of the court.

Eacc said it had been investigating Peter Maina Njehia , over claims he illegally and irregularly influenced tenders, procurement and payment of goods and services while serving as a senior manager, supply chain at Ketraco.

The Commission obtained a warrant to investigate Njehia’s bank account and searching his premises.

“There is therefore need to preserve the funds and freeze the account for a period of six months pending the conclusion of investigations and institution of recovery proceedings”, commission added.

EACC added that it was apprehensive that Njehia, in light of the on-going investigations, will in the intervening period continue withdrawing, transferring or disposing money in order to defeat the course of justice, before the Commission has completed its investigations and commenced recovery proceedings, unless the Orders sought are granted.

The commission told the court there was need to preserve the funds and freeze the account for a period of six months pending the conclusion of investigations and institution of recovery proceedings.

It is now evident through the preliminary investigations that the Respondent is in possession of unexplained wealth which is not commensurate to his known legitimate sources of income and specifically his salary as a public officer.

“An analysis of the preliminary investigations has raised reasonable suspicion that considering the respondent’s salary, large and frequent deposits into his bank accounts, shares and deposits in his SACCO account are disproportionate to his legitimate known sources of income and could have been obtained through corrupt conduct”, adds the commission.

The Commission is currently investigating Njehia’s close family members, including his spouse Julie Hellen Matu together with companies and properties associated with them and whom are suspected that Njehia could have channeled proceeds of corruption to their bank, SACCO and investment accounts and the Commission shall be filing an application seeking to freeze their accounts and properties in due course.

December 1, 2021