A warfare within the Center East. A tanker pre-positioned in a UAE port. A authorities emergency declared in 48 hours. And a Sh11.8 billion ($91 million) cargo of contaminated gas discharged at Mombasa over a public vacation weekend.
That’s the anatomy of what Narok Senator Ledama Ole Kina is looking probably the most brazen act of energy-sector looting in Kenya’s current historical past, as detailed in a Kenya Insights investigation revealed April 17.
Ole Kina has put 3 names on the centre of the alleged scheme in a bombshell assertion delivered earlier than the Senate Vitality Committee: Joel Mburu, Provide and Logistics Supervisor on the Kenya Pipeline Firm; Joseph Wafula, Deputy Director of Petroleum on the Ministry of Vitality; and Mohamed Jaffer, the 78-year-old Mombasa billionaire whose firm One Petroleum Restricted was the beneficiary of an emergency import authorisation signed on March 25, 2026, 2 days earlier than a totally loaded tanker with no observe document of importing Premium Motor Spirit docked at Mombasa port.
All allegations stay topic to courtroom proceedings and haven’t been lastly adjudicated.
The manufactured disaster
The sequence, as documented by Kenya Insights, begins with a March 9 Nationwide Safety Council Committee assembly on the Workplace of the President, chaired by Chief of Employees Felix Koskei. The assembly was convened to handle the disruption to Kenya’s gas provide brought on by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and instructed Petroleum Principal Secretary Mohamed Liban to diversify gas sources past the Gulf area.
By March 18, memos have been circulating contained in the Ministry of Vitality warning of an impending scarcity.
Senator Ole Kina’s allegation is that no actual scarcity existed. Kenya’s month-to-month requirement for Premium Motor Spirit stands at roughly 180,000 metric tonnes, he informed the committee. The G2G association was that day offloading 36,000 metric tonnes, with an extra 180,000 metric tonnes anticipated throughout the following 2 weeks. On these numbers, the nation was not operating dry. The scarcity, he says, was manufactured on paper by folks with the ability to change gas inventory information and the inducement to take action.
That energy sat with Joel Mburu at KPC. As Provide and Logistics Supervisor, Mburu managed the exact intersection of in-country stock information and import authorisation. Authorities described him as a “key individual” within the probe. Administrative motion in opposition to him was initiated by Koskei’s workplace. Joseph Wafula, sitting above the technical groups on the Ministry, signed off on procurement suggestions. Each males have been amongst officers arrested and questioned by the DCI because the investigation widened.
The cargo that ought to not have docked
On March 25, PS Liban wrote to One Petroleum director Ali Balala and Oryx Energies CEO Angeline Maangi, authorising every agency to import 60,000 metric tonnes of petrol exterior the present G2G framework. Two days later, the MT Paloma, a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker, docked at Mombasa port at roughly 4:14pm.
Ole Kina’s central query is exact: how does an organization with no observe document in importing Premium Motor Spirit reply to an emergency tender on March 25 and ship a 68,000-tonne cargo by March 27? Letters of credit score take days. Ship charters take days. The MT Paloma’s final recognized port earlier than Mombasa was Fujairah within the UAE, the place the cargo had been assembled and loaded lengthy earlier than any emergency was formally declared in Nairobi.
Preliminary investigations point out the gas originated from Saudi Aramco earlier than being bought to a separate worldwide agency and redirected by means of a neighborhood Kenyan importer. The diversion by means of a number of intermediaries earlier than touchdown exterior the G2G framework, investigators say, suggests the cargo was pre-positioned and ready.
The pricing makes the image worse. The G2G price is Sh140,000 per tonne. One Petroleum’s consignment was priced at Sh198,000 per tonne, a Sh58,000 premium per tonne that interprets to roughly Sh14 extra per litre on the pump. A G2G-compliant consignment would have price Sh8.4 billion. One Petroleum’s cargo was invoiced at Sh11.8 billion. The distinction is Sh3.4 billion transferred, in a single transaction, from Kenyan customers to the importer.
The Oryx Energies association, cited individually by Ole Kina, is much more hanging. Inside correspondence reviewed by the senator reportedly reveals pricing of USD 253.94 per metric tonne in opposition to the federal government’s personal contracted price of USD 84.00. Utilized throughout Kenya’s 180,000-tonne month-to-month requirement, that differential represents roughly Sh60 billion per 12 months flowing overseas by means of inflated gas pricing.
The gas itself
The cargo was not merely overpriced. It was chemically non-compliant.
PS Liban wrote to Kenya Bureau of Requirements Managing Director Esther Ngari requesting a brief waiver on conformity certificates, citing the Hormuz disruption. Commerce Cupboard Secretary Lee Kinyanjui subsequently granted that waiver in a letter dated March 28, acknowledging in writing that the petroleum aboard MT Paloma contained “excessive ranges of manganese, sulphur and benzene.”
Benzene is a recognized human carcinogen. Elevated manganese degrades catalytic converters. Excessive sulphur corrodes engines and raises poisonous roadside emissions. Kenyan motorists who crammed their tanks from stations provided by this consignment have been, with out their data, uncovered to contaminated gas over the Easter weekend. Preliminary experiences of engine harm linked to the consignment have been already circulating earlier than the DCI made its first arrests.
Who Mohamed Jaffer is
To know One Petroleum’s function, Kenya Insights notes, it’s important to perceive its father or mother. Mohamed Jaffer is the chairman of the MJ Group, valued at roughly KSh16.3 billion ($125 million) by the Africa Report in 2025. His industrial footprint at Mombasa port is with out precedent amongst personal people: Grain Bulk Handlers controls the majority of Kenya’s LPG imports; Mbaraki Bulk Terminal handles multi-petroleum product storage; One Petroleum Restricted, established in November 2010, imports gas.
Company filings present One Petroleum’s board consists of Jaffer’s sons alongside different associates. Its shareholder register consists of Mbaraki Holdings Restricted, a Mauritius-registered entity holding 41,098 bizarre shares, whose offshore construction investigators say is able to obscuring helpful possession throughout jurisdictions.
One Petroleum’s debt structure can be notable. 2 debentures dated September 2, 2024 every safe USD 95 million, whereas 2 deeds of project safe an additional USD 395 million. This isn’t a small operator on the margins of Kenya’s gas market.
Jaffer’s political attain is as huge as his industrial one. He has been linked to successive Kenyan administrations, was amongst enterprise figures honoured by President William Ruto at a ceremony on October 20, 2023, and had beforehand backed opposition chief Raila Odinga. Following the scandal, EPRA Director-Common Daniel Kiptoo disclosed that One Petroleum had been formally integrated into the G2G framework, increasing the variety of taking part Kenyan oil corporations from 3 to five. The emergency of March 2026, the Kenya Insights investigation concludes, was not the start of One Petroleum’s relationship with the state. It was the end result of years of strategic positioning.
The officers who resigned, the minister who didn’t
On April 4, PS Liban, KPC MD Joe Sang and EPRA DG Kiptoo resigned inside hours of their arrest. Deputy Director Wafula resigned weeks later as investigators closed in on the paper path.
Vitality CS Opiyo Wandayi has refused to resign, insisting no authorized grounds exist for him to vacate workplace whereas investigations stay energetic. His defence is that the procurement proceeded on the technical degree with out his direct involvement. However the March 28 waiver request from PS Liban, looking for permission to import gas with carcinogenic parameters, was addressed to Wandayi’s workplace, not merely copied to it.
Former CS Martha Karua was direct: “There is no such thing as a method one thing of that magnitude occurs underneath his watch and he would not know.”
A petition is earlier than the Milimani Excessive Court docket looking for Wandayi’s suspension. Civil society motion Mtetezi has filed separate litigation looking for transparency in gas procurement.
Gas costs in Nairobi at the moment stand at Sh206.70 per litre for petrol and Sh206.84 for diesel. The federal government has instructed that One Petroleum’s prices not be factored into the April pricing cycle. Stress on pump costs from mid-April stays, the federal government has acknowledged.
The MT Paloma sailed south way back. The investigation it left behind remains to be very a lot alive.
