Probe is expected to thrust into the limelight top Kenyan officials named in the scandal, including former Justice minister Martha Karua and ex-Trade minister Moses Wetang’ula.
The Serious Fraud Office Tuesday said it had begun piecing together information on how BAT allegedly bribed Kenyan tax officials, legislators, and insiders in rival company insiders in order to undermine competition and stifle anti-smoking laws.
The BBC in 2015 had reported that BAT allegedly paid bribes to officials in East Africa. The BBC had adversely mentioned Bungoma senator Moses Wetangula in its 2015 bribery story.
UK authorities have opened investigations into claims that British cigarette maker BAT #ticker:BAT ran a systematic bribery syndicate in Nairobi aimed at stifling anti-smoking laws and collecting business intelligence on rivals.
The investigation is expected to thrust into the limelight top Kenyan officials named in the scandal, including former Justice minister Martha Karua and ex-Trade minister Moses Wetang’ula, who is a key leader in the opposition Nasa coalition.
The Serious Fraud Office Tuesday said it had begun piecing together information on how BAT allegedly bribed Kenyan tax officials, legislators, and insiders in rival company insiders in order to undermine competition and stifle anti-smoking laws.
“The SFO confirms it is investigating suspicions of corruption in the conduct of business by BAT plc, its subsidiaries and associated persons,” the British anti-graft agency told the Business Daily.
“The next public facing update would either be to bring charges or to close the investigation without charge.”
The SFO has a track record of netting mega graft in Kenya, including the IEBC Chickengate scandal where election officials took bribes, code-named chicken, to inflate ballot paper tenders.
Publishers Oxford and Macmillan were also punished for bribing public officers to win contracts to supply school books.
Other Kenyan officials named in the scandal christened ‘Cigargate’ are Mary M’Mukindia, a former director at the Kenya Revenue Authority, and Julie Adell-Owino, a former BAT Kenya lobbyist.
The bribery allegations involving BAT in Kenya and Uganda were first reported in an exposé by London broadcaster BBC in December 2015, and further details unearthed by Independent newspaper.
Ms M’Mukindia was the conduit through which BAT plc allegedly bribed Ms Karua, the former Justice minister, with £50,000 to block a rival firm from winning a lucrative tender at the KRA, the Independent reported.
But Ms Karua has disputed the sum of cash received and its purpose, saying she received a Sh2 million “donation” to her presidential campaign.
Swiss firm Sicpa — which won the five-year KRA deal in December 2012 to supply excise stamps — has rejected claims that BAT plc influenced its winning of the mega tender.
Ms M’Mukindia, a former chief executive at State-owned oil marketer Nock and currently a director at GT Bank, served as campaign adviser and fundraiser for Ms Karua’s unsuccessful presidential bid in 2013.
BAT plc said it had hired external legal advisers to liaise with the SFO in the ongoing probe.
“BAT intends to co-operate with that investigation,” a spokesperson at the tobacco firm told the Business Daily.
Ms Adell-Owino is said to have organised payment of bribes to senior government officials, including Mr Wetang’ula, for reasons that were not explained.
She was forced to resign from East Africa Breweries Ltd #ticker:EABL where she was a corporate affairs executive, when news of her involvement in the BAT bribery scandal was aired by BBC.
BAT paid hefty kickbacks to KRA officials who in turn handed over the British tobacco firm tax files belonging to rival Mastermind Tobacco — maker of the Supermatch brand of cigarettes, according to the exposé by BBC’s Panorama.
KRA bureaucrats also reportedly pocketed huge bribes from BAT plc to slap Mastermind Tobacco with numerous tax demand notices, a strategy to intimidate its rival and damage the reputation of the homegrown Kenyan company.
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