Two insurance brokers arrested for alleged Ksh.40.5M tender fraud at Kenya Maritime Authority

The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has arrested two top officials at the Liaison Group Insurance Brokers over alleged collusion with Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA) to fraudulently secure a Ksh.40,539,760.00 medical insurance tender.

Julius Kitheka, General Manager of Healthcare at Liaison Group, and Danson Kaba, the company's Mombasa branch manager were arrested after the anti-graft agency conducted a search operation in the insurance broker's offices in Nairobi and Mombasa.

EACC said this is part of an ongoing probe into increasing cases of private insurance companies colluding with government agencies to fraudulently secure tenders for staff medical insurance coverage at exorbitant costs.

According to EACC, the two are accused of masterminding the fraudulent scheme on behalf of Liaison Insurance Group, working in cahoots with Henry Mwasaru, KMA’s Head of Human Resource and Administration and Bevaline Lundu, the agency’s Head of Supply Chain Management.

Under court orders issued by the Mombasa Chief Magistrates Court, Kitheka was arrested after a search in his Nairobi residence and escorted to EACC Integrity Centre Offices for processing.

Kaba was meanwhile arrested in Mombasa and processed at EACC’s Mombasa offices. Mwasaru was arrested at Naivasha where he attended training and was taken to Integrity Centre.

According to the graft watchdog, its preliminary investigation revealed that Liaison Group secured the tender through bid rigging and that the tender was prepared and finalised by senior officers from the company and forwarded to KMA for an advertisement to invite bidders.

The corruptly awarded Tenders are KMA-ONT-19-2023-2024, KMA-ONT-20-2023-2024 and KMA-ONT-29-2022-2023 for the provision of medical insurance cover, group life assurance cover and general insurance cover to KMA staff and board members at a cost of Ksh.40,539,760, executed during the financial years 2022/2023 and 2023/2024.

Confirming the Tuesday raid and arrests, the commission, through Spokesperson Eric Ngumbi, on Sunday said that the operation has yielded valuable evidentiary material that will support the ongoing investigation.