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Audit flags Sh4.4bn Konza smart city job payment
Monday June 14 2021
The data centre at Konza Technopolis in this picture taken on March 29, 2021. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL | NMG
By EDWIN MUTAI
The Auditor-General has raised the red flag over direct payments of Sh4.4 billion from a Chinese lender to telecoms giant Huawei for the construction of the Konza Data Centre.
Nancy Gathungu says the lender could not produce documents to validate the payments to Huawei, raising concerns that taxpayers could lose billions of shillings through unsubstantiated payment demands.
The Konza project, conceived in 2017 by the ICT ministry and Huawei, entails the development of core infrastructure including a national cloud data centre, a smart ICT network, a public safe city and smart traffic solution, and a government cloud and enterprise service.
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Ongoing construction at Konza City (PHOTO: FILE)
The Konza Technopolis project will take up a substantial chunk of the money allocated to the Information and Communication (ICT) Ministry, according to budget estimates for the upcoming financial year.
This is in keeping with the trend where the government has been pumping in huge amounts of money to the flagship project of the Kenya Vision 2030 economic blueprint over the last few financial years. Touted as “Africa’s Silicon Savannah,” the city is meant to be an IT business hub, sitting on a 5,000-acre site 70 kilometres from Nairobi.
In the upcoming 2021/22 financial year, which kicks in on July 1, the tech city has been allocated Sh17.8 billion for mostly putting in place infrastructure.