House seeks pay for Israeli Galana irrigation company

Parliament has directed the government to pay all bills owed to an Israeli firm that is constructing  the Sh14.5 billion Galana-Kulalu irrigation project.

The National Assembly Agriculture committee said clearance of pending bills will enable Green Arava Ltd expedite works in the 10,000-acre model farm as per a new roadmap agreed between the contractor and the government.

The committee said the National Irrigation Board (NIB), which is implementing the project, had paid Green Arava Sh2,555,917,097 as at February, being 17.5 per cent of the original contract amount.

“The government must pay the contractor all the pending certificates of works to enable him expedite the works.”

The committee did not quantify the amount of money that Green Arava is seeking through various certificates of work done that it has presented to the NIB.

“The government must avail enough funds to fast-track the putting up of mechanism for Public Private Partnership (PPP) for the rolling out of the one million- acre irrigation project,” Mohamed Noor, Mandera North MP, said in a report to the House on the ambitious Jubilee administration food security project.

The key role of the 10,000 acre model farm is to test various modern irrigation technologies on several crops and demonstrate the viability of commercial production and processing to attract private investors.

The 10,000-acre farm is being financed by the government with the support of Israel as per the Declaration of Intent entered between the two states.

The government successfully negotiated a $71,408,014 (Sh7.25 billion) loan with Israel for the project.

Israel is also providing a training grant of approximately Sh3.5 billion. The delay in finalising the loan arrangement greatly hampered the implementation of the project due to funding shortfalls from the National Treasury. 

The government scaled down the project by omitting several components including a maize milling factory, construction of a school, police station, green houses, vegetable packing and cold rooms and taxes totaling Sh7,538,794,949 in the first phase of the project.

“In the reviewed project schedule proposal, the government has prioritised the completion of basic irrigation production infrastructure of the entire 10,000 acres before embarking on the other components. The deferred components shall be undertaken upon successful implementation of the basic irrigation infrastructure,” the committee said in its report to Parliament.

Direct procurement

Mr Noor’s committee, which initially called for the suspension of the multibillion-shilling project, has agreed to support the reviewed plan for implementation of the Galana-Kulalu Food Security Project (GKFSP) as recommended by the Executive.

“The committee’s resolution to support the new initiative was borne from its (committee’s) aspiration to ensure the project succeeds in achieving its intended goals,” Mr Noor said.  

The committee probed the award of the tender to Green Arava through direct procurement at a cost of Sh14,545,106,963.

The tender award was executed on the strength of the first the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) entered between the government of Kenya and Israel.