Magnate Ventures fake security screening machine
A security screening machine at the entrance of Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport installed at a cost of Sh600 million is faulty.
It has emerged that the machine has been faulty for more than a year over the failure to secure a maintenance contract between the supplier, Rapiscan System, and the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA).It has barely been two years since the machine was commissioned, and the situation is now the subject of a Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) probe.
At the centre of the disagreement is an annual maintenance fee of about Sh9 million that KAA is not ready to pay until a tender is floated and won.This is 3 per cent of the amount tendered after the expiry of the warranty period.
The Primary Security Screening Facility at JKIA was installed in September 2015 by the American-based firm through a joint venture with Kenyan company Magnet Ventures Ltd.KAA entered into tender No. KAA/ES/HQ/918/E with M/S Magnate Ventures Ltd and JV High Technologies Detection Systems (HTDS) for a sum of $5,848,226.50 (about Sh600 million), commencing March 2015.
Insiders said there has been a turf war between security and engineering departments at KAA on who should run the scanner, which may have led to its current state of affairs.
The X-ray vehicle scanner that was commissioned on September 10, 2015, was reported to be faulty in January 2017, just a few months after KAA certified it. This has now attracted the attention of DCI detectives who have commenced a probe.
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