Adan Mohamed suspends Kebs boss over claims of gross misconduct

The government has suspended the Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) boss Eva Oduor barely a week after it emerged that she had inflated the cost of a project undertaken by the agency.

Industrialisation Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohamed announced her suspension from office –effective Thursday— and promised to make further management changes at Kebs.

Mr Charles Gichahi, the director of standards at the agency has been appointed as the managing director in an acting capacity.

Mr Mohamed said that the government will soon appoint a substantive chair of Kebs to end a three-month vacuum that has exposed it to governance lapses.

The suspension of Ms Oduor came after allegations that she had inflated the cost of building the agency’s laboratory in Mombasa by Sh300,000, an action that was later overturned.

“(Her suspension) follows a resolution by the National Standards Council on gross misconduct claims arising from the recently annulled Mombasa Laboratory project,” reads part of the statement from Mr Mohamed’s office.

She picked Epo Builders –the most expensive contractor who had asked for Sh1 billion— and went ahead to raise the project’s budget to Sh1.3 billion.

This prompted the National Standards Council (NSC) to write to Mr Mohamed accusing the suspended MD of going against earlier instructions to pick competitive bidders.

Other firms that had bid for the project were Diwafa Investment (Sh1.1 billion), N.K Brothers (Sh1.159 billion), Sicuan Huashi (Sh1.186 billion), Tulsin Construction (Sh1.22 billion), Donwoods (Sh1.223 billion), Landmark (Sh1.251 billion), China Overseas (Sh1.283 billion) and Mulji Devraj (Sh1.298 billion).