- This comes after 4.5 billion KPC shares worth approximately Ksh.42 billion were traded from state-owned entities to an anonymous private investor on October 19.
Kiharu Member of Parliament (MP) Ndindi Nyoro has intimated that President William Ruto is using proxies to takeover majority ownership stake of the Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) shares.
This comes after 4.5 billion KPC shares worth approximately Ksh.42 billion were traded from state-owned entities to an anonymous private investor on October 19.
The KPC Initial Public Offering (IPO) was open from January 19 to February 24, and the company was officially listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) on March 9.
Less than eight months after the listing, a sudden and massive shift in KPC ownership occurred on the NSE block trading platform, as the trade equates to a 24.76% stake in KPC.
According to MP Nyoro, President Ruto called the CEOs of state agencies, among them NSSF and PSSF, to buy KPC shares against the advice of their own professionals.
He claimed that President Ruto called them again, instructing them to sell the shares to a “private investor”.
"The exit price was between Ksh.9.02 and Ksh.9.36. The shares were sold cum dividend so that the “Private Investor” maximizes benefits," he said in a statement.
The legislator believes that the bank used for the transaction belongs to President Ruto, adding that the private entity is a proxy he also used and is set to cash in millions.
"The so-called private investor is a company that President Ruto has private interests in. He is among the “Private Foreign Investors”," he said.
"In other words he took a soft loan from your pensions, you made a loss but he is making money from it."
He projects that the transaction is part of Ruto's interest in the newly-launched Dangote East Africa Petroleum Refinery in Lamu.
This comes a day after President Ruto, during the Mashujaa celebrations in Eldoret, defended the transfer of the shares, saying it will help raise private funds for strategic infrastructure.
Despite withholding the identity of the private entity, he held that the sale will help attract private investment into key economy sectors.
“Just yesterday, in a demonstration of confidence in our growing capital markets, private investors acquired a 25 per cent stake in Kenya Pipeline from public entities, marking another step in mobilising private capital for strategic infrastructure,” Ruto said.