Just a week after Transport Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir defended the Adani Group before Parliament and stated it was not involved in any corruption activities, Gautam Adani was on Wednesday, November 20, charged in the United States in a $250 million (about Ksh32 billion in the current exchange rates) bribery scheme.
“Adani has not been barred by any country, has no history of corruption based on our due diligence, is solvent, and is tax compliant in all jurisdictions where it operates,” Chirchir told Parliament on Thursday last week.
He went on to add, “Its directors have not faced criminal convictions related to professional conduct within the last five years and have not been disqualified due to any administrative suspension or debarment proceedings.”
Exactly a week after this statement, Adani, the group CEO, along with seven other executives in the multibillion-dollar Indian company, were indicted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in New York for bribing Indian government officials. According to the indictment, the Adani Group has for years bribed officials to lie to US investors and acquire green energy supply contracts for the group’s Adani Green subsidiary.
According to a report by CNN, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lisa Miller stated that the bribes were to facilitate the officials lying to investors and banks to raise billions of dollars and to obstruct justice.
“This indictment alleges schemes to pay over $250 (approximately Ksh32 billion) million in bribes to Indian government officials. These offences were allegedly committed by senior executives and directors to obtain and finance massive state energy supply contracts through corruption and fraud at the expense of US investors,” she stated.
The report also revealed that sufficient evidence has been obtained by the DOJ detailing the extent of the bribery scheme that is suspected to have taken place between the years 2020 and 2024.
Adani and the other defendants are said to have met with the government officials several times during this period to advance the scheme.
A cellphone that had been used to track specific details of the bribe is also part of the evidence gathered, as is a photograph of a document summarising various bribe amounts and PowerPoint and Excel analyses.
The green energy supply contracts Adani was chasing were meant to make the company a profit of $2 billion (approximately Ksh259 billion) over 20 years.
In addition to these bribery charges, Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani, and another executive of a different company, are on the hook for a $175 (approximately Ksh22 billion) bribery scheme that fraudulently earned them contracts from the Indian government.
Since a whistleblower revealed the contentious Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA)-Adani deal, numerous lawsuits have surfaced accusing the group of engaging in fraudulent activities worldwide; however, the Kenyan government and Adani Group have repeatedly denied this.
The country had done due diligence before starting any talks with them regarding the JKIA takeover, which, if signed, could give the Indian conglomerate control over the airport for 30 years, Chirchir even said in the government’s most recent denial.
Source: kENYANS.CO.KE