Kenyan President William Ruto has ordered the cancellation of a procurement process that had been expected to award control of the country’s main airport to India’s Adani Group after its founder was indicted in the United States.
President Ruto said yesterday, Thursday that he had cancelled a nearly $2 billion airport expansion and energy deals with Indian tycoon Gautam Adani after U.S. bribery and fraud indictments against him (Gautam Adani, one of Asia’s richest men). He also said he was cancelling a separate 30-year, $736 million public-private partnership that an Adani Group firm signed with the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum last month to construct power transmission lines.
Ruto made the announcement on Thursday in his State of the Nation address yesterday, Thursday.
He said the decision was made “based on new information provided by our investigative agencies and partner nations.” He didn’t specify the United States.
Under the proposed deal, the Adani Group was to add a second runway at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and upgrade the passenger terminal in exchange for a 30-year lease.
The Adani group had also been in the process of signing an agreement that would modernize Kenya’s main airport in the capital, Nairobi, with an additional runway and terminal constructed, in exchange for the group running the airport for 30 years.
The widely criticized deal had sparked anti-Adani protests in Kenya and a strike by airport workers, who said it would lead to degraded working conditions and job losses in some cases. The Adani group had been awarded a deal to construct power transmission lines in Kenya, East Africa’s business hub.
On the heels of that, Kenya’s Energy Minister Opiyo Wandayi told a parliamentary committee there had been no bribery or corruption involved on Kenya’s part in signing that deal. However, the deals had been sharply criticized over a lack of transparency and value for money.
U.S. prosecutors indicted Adani this week on charges that he duped investors in a massive solar energy project in India by concealing that it was facilitated by an alleged bribery scheme. He was charged with securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud.
“I have directed agencies within the Ministry of Transport and within the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum to immediately cancel the ongoing procurement,” Ruto said, attributing the decision to “new information provided by investigative agencies and partner nations”.
This behoves the question, whether President Ruto is cancelling the deal owing to the alleged corruption behind it, or is it just in a response to supporting an ally (The United States) ?
