When Kurunzi first broke the story of how Football Kenya Federation had ‘lost’ a outside broadcasting van they intended to buy, the Nick Mwendwa-led federation dismissed the claims, saying the story was a fabrication.
At that time, then head of communications and marketing – Barry Otieno, now the acting Chief Executive, explained they had purchased the OB van from South African giant – SuperSport, through a British company called WTS.
That was 14 February 2019.
He added, at the time, the van would be handed over within two to three weeks, meaning it should have been handed to FKF “end of February latest beginning of March”.
That never happened and whereas stakeholders have questioned the absence of the van, it became clearer that this was a major concern when the auditors checking FKF books for the last financial year in preparation for the seventh annual general meeting flagged the KSh135 million-valued asset as one they could not account for.
Despite this glaring audit query, Mwendwa forced through the approval of the financial report at the general assembly held in Nairobi on 5 October 2019.
However, while finance experts say explainable audit queries are no cause for alarm “as long as the explanation provided is well supported”, what has raised eyebrows and rattled FKF is FIFA writing to Mwendwa & co demanding an explanation from the Federation.
Reports which Kurunzi is yet to independently verify suggest the world governing body wants to be told the progress of the project. FIFA is yet to respond to our email, dispatched on Saturday but had replied to our inquiry in February.
Kurunzi understands, Zurich may have declined to give the financial report as approved by the general assembly a clean bill of health. It is mandatory that before FIFA approves any financial report is approved by FIFA, all audit queries must be satisfactorily responded to.
Failure to get the nod means FKF will not receive any further disbursement until their books are cleared and that is why FKF boss – Mwendwa, is getting nervous and has run into panic after a series of reports over the past few days in the local dailies.
In confirming they indeed paid WTS the money for delivery of the OB van but nothing has happened, Mwendwa is frantically pleading with the media to avoid the story as continued publicity of the issue exposes his federation to sanctions from Zurich.
According to FKF, the world body is due to issue it’s position by Friday this week and the media focus is unwelcome by Mwendwa because it may conflict with whatever they may have told FIFA in their explanation.
Their greatest fear is that, with the ongoing purge as FIFA seeks to rid corruption from it’s fraternity, the axe may fall on Mwendwa, who could be suspended by the ethics chamber. Uganda football boss Amos Magogo was recently suspended for ticketing fraud and Mwendwa could face similar sanctions.
A source said they have now written to WTS demanding delivery of the van, which was part of a number of ‘obsolete’ production vehicles being disposed through the British firm, which has reportedly folded up from their London base.
That means, FKF will be sanctioned for entering into a third-party arrangement without prior consent, especially if the equipment they were purchasing could be sourced directly.
As all these is happening, the federation has never issues any official statement on the matter.
