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FKF listed as creditors after WTS Group went bankrupt
Football Kenya Federation (FKF) president Nick Mwendwa

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Football Kenya Federation (FKF) president Nick Mwendwa has finally come out to clarify on the issue of the Outside Broadcast (OB) van that cost the federation Sh 135 million, but is no where to be seen.

This follows a series of integrity questions raised by a section of football stake holders who demanded that the federation comes clean on the issue. On Sunday former federation president Sam Nyawmeya and former Vihiga governor Moses Akaranga questioned the deal and demanded answers on why the van was missing despite the fact that the federation had spent the money.

“We did everything over board with total transparency and all I can say is that the federation is currently a creditor after WTS Group which sold us the van went into administration,” Mwendwa told People Sport.

He said the idea to purchase the van was mooted and passed by delegates during the federation’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Mombasa in 2017 as they prepared for the exit of broadcasters SuperSport from the Kenyan market.

“After the AGM we informed Fifa about the thought and they approved the project and agreed to fund it after analysing it, so through a procurement process, the federation whittled down to three firms and we finally settled for WTS Group because they had supplied SuperSport with OB vans for 14 years and for that they were a familiar firm compared to the rest,” Mwendwa said.

He added: “Since SuperSport was closing shop in the country, WTS decided to buy back one of the OB vans they had sold them and hand over to FKF. Fifa officials agreed with the proposal and sent a team of officials to help evaluate the van. They were satisfied with it then released a payment of Sh 135m to FKF to pay WTS.”

Mwendwa says by the time they were sealing the deal with WTS Group, they could not tell if they had any loans that would jeopardise the deal.

“It later emerged that WTS Group had a debt with HSBC Bank in United Kingdom, there is no way we could tell about the debt before we made the deal. So HSBC Bank went to court and the court in London ruled that WTS Group be put under administration through a management and accounting company called BDO,” the FKF boss said.

He added: “BDO listed FKF as a creditor as required legally, in a process that may take two years, in which all creditors are supposed to be paid. We paid WTS directly and Fifa is aware of all the steps we took in this deal, so persons must know that there were no any third party involved are misinformed.”

The van which was to come complete with a tender van which carries cables, with eight high quality camera, which is the set-up Confederation of African Football (CAF) wanted to produce their matches, as well as proper sound and production equipment, was to produce Kenyan Premier League (KPL) matches, FKF Cup matches, all national teams matches and CAF Champions League and Confederation Cup matches.

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