E-Clips:- Business Pictorial - Mahindra, The Ugly Side Of Secret Tenders In Security

When Ntonyiri MP Maoka Maore blew the whistle on the Sh2.7 billion passport deal, he mentioned a name that carries a special significance in Government supplies history: Mahindra.

According to Mr Maore, although documents indicated that a UK firm, Anglo Leasing and Finance Company of Liverpool, was behind the passports deal, the real forces behind the contract were the same ones who supplied the Kenya Police with the infamous and highly ineffective Mahindra jeeps. Kamsons Ltd was the company that sold the Mahindra jeeps used by the police for several inglorious years.

Key among directors of the firm, which started off as an assembler of posho mills, was Deepak Chamanlal Kamani, a close of friend of yet another businessman associated with big-sum contracts, a Mr Pereira. According to documents at the Registrar of Companies, Kamsons Ltd was officially registered in 1975.

Lucrative security supplies

By 1998, its directors were Deepak, Mr Rashmikant Chamanlal Kamani, Mr Chamanlal Vrajlal Kamani, Mr Surendra P. Joshi and Mr Sudha Chamanlal Kamani.

The Kamani family, under the patriarch Chamanlal Vrajlal Kamani, for many years ran a low key business of supplying posho mills from a factory on Lusaka Road. But some time in late 1980s, someone introduced them to the lucrative world of security supplies.

At the time, the kingpin of security procurement was Mr Ketan Somaia, who had stepped into the shoes of Mr Anura Pereira, who had in turn relocated to Cyprus.

Mr Somaia used to work closely with the Internal Security Chief, the late Hezekiah Oyugi, then the second-most Powerful person in Kenya after President Moi.

When Mr Somaia shifted his base from Kenya to Dubai in early 1990s after the death of Mr Oyugi, the Kamanis entrenched themselves in the business of security procurement.

They now had dealings with Mr Oyugis successor at the Office of the President, Mr Wilfred Kimalat. It was during his tenure as Internal Security PS that a firm closely linked to Kamsons was contracted to supply boilers for the Prisons Department.

Multi-million prisons deal

The multimillion-shilling boilers deal has been the subject of a running investigation by the Controller and Auditor General. After being paid, the company supplied boilers that were either secondhand or unserviceable.

When Mr Zakayo Cheruiyot took over as PS in charge of Internal Security, Mr Deepak Kamani became a regular visitor to Harambee House.

But even with high connections, there were some politicians and civil servants in the Moi regime who did not get along with the Kamanis. Mr Chris Okemo, for instance, resisted them when he served as Finance minister. Sources close to him say he blamed his removal from Treasury partly to his differences with the big time contractors.

With the defeat of Kanu, many had assumed that those linked to Kamsons had lost their high-level connections. But the comments of Mr Maore in Parliament appear to suggest that they are still actively in business.