Azimio Principal Raila Odinga claims that the government-to-government oil deal that President Wiliam Ruto signed with Saudi companies was corrupt.

In his dossier, the Azimio premier accused Ruto of disguising the deal as a government project to help Kenyan Companies, Gulf Energy, Galana Oil Kenya Ltd, and Oryx Energies Kenya Limited, evade taxes. 

''We now know that the characterisation of this deal as G-to-G was meant to shield the three Kenyan companies from paying 30 percent corporate tax,'" the former Prime Minister stated while addressing the media. 

According to Raila, the companies contracted in the oil deals bought the product and sold it at an inflated price.

''This shady business model is being deployed by all the companies retained in the Ruto deal. They buy at low prices, delay in discharging, then ask to be allowed to offload at higher prices, and the cost is passed to consumers,'' Raila alleged.

The Ministry of Energy and Petroleum was also alleged to have changed billing months to allow the oil companies to quote higher prices. 

Further, the importing companies delayed the delivery and offloading dates to maximize prices which he termed as inflated. Kenyans, in the end, bore the brunt of the deal as they purchased fuel at exorbitant prices. 

Raila also attributed the deal as the main cause of a diplomatic tiff and broken trade agreements with neighbouring landlocked countries such as Uganda. The neighbouring country, which depended on Kenya for fuel imports, recently enacted a law barring Kenyan companies from importing oil on its behalf. 

''It is shrouded in deep secrecy. To date, only two documents have been made public; that is the Master Framework Agreement with petroleum trading entities and the Open Tender System modified agreement with marketers," he further stated.

The formula used to nominate the three companies in the oil deal, according to Raila, was also questionable since it was shrouded in secrecy.  

''Nobody knows how Gulf Energy, Galana Oil Kenya Ltd, and Oryx Energies Kenya Limited got nominated to handle local logistics. But the hand-picked distributors are selling oil to us at almost twice the price from bulk suppliers,'' Raila further claimed, accusing Ruto of corruption. 

He thus demanded the government revert to an open tender system to give a fair chance to all suppliers and publish the details of the oil deal to prove innocence. 

Early this year, the Kenyan government entered into an import agreement with the governments of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

In the deal, state-owned Oil companies were nominated to import fuel in what Ruto said was to help the shilling stabilize by weighing more options. By Levi Onyinkwa, Kenyans.co.ke