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The Senate’s Labour and Social Welfare Committee has directed that  the stalled Dandora Stadium be completed in the next two months.

 The Sh350 million stadium that was commissioned in 2018 should have been completed in July last year but works stopped when the project was 80 percent complete.

 Committee chairman Johnson Sakaja described the delay as a great disservice to thousands of young people who intend to use the stadium to develop their talents.

 Sakaja asked the Nairobi County government, Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) and the Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission (EACC) to do an assessment of the project to determine if there was any impropriety.

 “I think we have an obligation as the Senate committee to give directions. We are going to work with the reports we have received but the bottom line is we want the stadium opened in the next two months,” said Sakaja.

 Yesterday the committee held a virtual stakeholder meeting on the state of the stadium where they met officials from Nairobi County , EACC and PPRA.

 The county government through Nairobi Education and Sports executive Janet Ouko was at pains to explain why they paid  Sh196.87 million to the contractor despite the technical evaluators questioning the quality of work.

 “I wasn’t there,” Ouko said, adding,  “Actually these are some of the reasons that led to the impeachment of the previous governor, a matter I don’t want to touch on.

However, we are seeking a common goal because our youth have suffered a lot.” 

 The new dilemma for the county government is that the 18-month tenure for Scanjet Construction has elapsed.

  PPRA in their submission said they questioned the tendering process and the standards of the work done by Scanjet Construction.

 Pauline Opiyo, Acting Director General  PPRA, pointed out the frustrations of dealing with the  county government.

 “PPRA flagged irregularities in the awarding of the tender, alteration of contract specifications, suspected irregular payments and forgery of documents,” she said

  Ouko said  the country government was in limbo on what to do given that the contract with the contractor had expired and the matter was still under investigation.

 “Investigation is not the basis for stopping the work as long as everything is done within the law.

You cannot blame EACC for stalled projects. At no point did we request that the works stop,” David Too standing in for EACC boss Twalib Mbarak clarified.

 Too admitted investigations have taken longer than expected but cited Covid-19 pandemic as one of the reasons.

 “We have allocated more officers to help us finish the job. The investigation will be completed in the next two months before we can send a detailed report to the Director Of Public Prosecutions,” said Too

 The Dandora Stadium is one of the four stadiums in Nairobi that were allocated Sh1.3 billion in the 2017-18, 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 financial years.

 The other three are Kawangware Stadium (Sh250 million), Kihumbuini (Sh250 million) and Ziwani (Sh186.6 million), projects that never commenced.

 Ouko now says they will engage a different contractor to do the job.

 “Of concern to PPRA was the variations in regard to project’s material without any explanations on the cost implications,” she added.

 PPRA also pointed out that the county government irregularly paid the contractor despite warnings from technical evaluators that contract documents, including a Cabinet memo, were forged to state the stadium should be a steel structure when the work was 70 percent complete.