Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, AfDB boss

By Temitope Ponle

The African Development Bank (AfDB) Group on Tuesday announced an 18-month debarment of Rockey Africa Limited and its affiliates for fraudulent practices.

According to a statement from the AfDB on Wednesday, the affiliates include Aerospace Aviation, Eva-Top Agencies, Sony Commercial Agencies, Beta Trading Company and Madujey Global Services.

Similarly, the bank group also debarred Mr Robert Kamau Wachira, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Rockey Africa Limited for 24 months.

The debarments took effect from Aug. 5 for all the six companies, which are registered under the laws of the Republic of Kenya.

The statement said that an investigation conducted by the bank’s Office of Integrity and Anti-Corruption established that Rockey Africa Limited, its named affiliates and Wachira, engaged in fraudulent practices in several tenders under the Support to enhancement of quality and relevance in higher education, science and technology project implemented in Kenya.

During the period of debarment, Rockey Africa Limited, its affiliates and Wachira would be ineligible to participate in any projects financed by the bank group.

Additionally, this debarment qualifies for cross-debarment by other multilateral development banks under the agreement for mutual enforcement of debarment decisions.

They include the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank Group.

At the expiry of the debarment periods, Rockey Africa Limited and its affiliates would only be eligible to resume participation in the AfDB group-financed projects after implementing integrity compliance programmes consistent with the bank’s guidelines.

However, the case of the chairman’s participation would be after completing an accredited business integrity training.

The support to enhancement of quality and relevance in higher education, science and technology project was aimed at increasing the number of qualified and skilled engineers, in line with Kenya’s Vision 2030 priorities for science, technology and innovation.

The project is co-financed by the African Development Fund, an entity of the AfDB group and the Kenyan government.

The Office of Integrity and Anti-Corruption of the bank group is responsible for preventing, deterring and investigating allegations of corruption, fraud and other sanctionable practices in its financed operations.