Thursday 3rd February, 2022:
Nairobi governor aspirant the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KNCCI) president Richard Ngatia has lashed out at political opponent who have taken to maligning his business ventures in the city political duel.
Ngatia hit out at his opponents who he accused of running short of development agenda to sell to the people of Nairobi as the gubernatorial contest gather momentum and had turned to dragging his multi-national Megascope Healthcare Limited into the KEMSA scandal.
The Nairobi governor front runner warned competitors to shun petty politics and instead tell Nairobians what they will do for them if elected in the August 9th polls.
“It is very unfortunate and it pains me that some people are playing politics with the lives of Kenyans. Megascope is a multinational company operating in over 15 countries. We provide sophisticated medical equipment and train our health workers on how to use them,” Ngatia said during an interview with a local vernacular radio Station.
Ngatia is the managing director of Megascope Healthcare Limited, a major corporate player in the healthcare industry in Kenya.
Megascope is a key provider of healthcare equipment leasing for county governments in the business of supplies, installations, training of personnel, commissions and maintenance of healthcare equipment.
The company, through Managed Equipment Services, supplied, installed, trained, commissioned and is providing planned preventive maintenance of equipment.
Megascope is also maintaining a 98 per cent uptime of theatre equipment in 219 operating rooms of 115 government hospitals.
The chamber of commerce head came out clear and warned those eyeing for the Nairobi top seat to keep off linking his company with the Kemsa fraud noting that the expertise provided by his company was key to supplying ventilators to hospitals in Kenya at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and therefore helping in saving thousands of lives.
“When Covid-19 hit our country, we had less than 20 ventilators and other ICU equipment. Being a market leader in the market, we were contracted to provide the much-needed equipment, we delivered in record time and saved so many lives,” Ngatia added.
“Kenyans should celebrate our heroic and bravery act which saved lives. Not everyone who supplied to Kemsa is corrupt. People are still supplying Kemsa to date, do you mean all are thieves?” Ngatia posed.
In September 2020, a damning report by the Senate alleged that Megascope Healthcare Ltd was at the centre of the Sh63 billion medical kits scandal that rocked the country in the supply of Covid-19 personal protective equipment (PPEs). The senators alleged that the company was conceived like a criminal enterprise and got over Sh1 billion in contracts for Covid-19 medical supplies.
When Ngatia appeared before a parliamentary committee investigating the alleged Kemsa fraud, he warned that the current trend of painting private businesses as corrupt was in a bad light and would scare away investors from the country.
“This was a far-fetched allegation. We are not in the business of clearing and forwarding, we supply,” Ngatia told parliamentarians.
He challenged anyone with evidence linking him, or Megascope to graft to submit the evidence to the relevant authorities instead of spreading ‘propaganda’.
“We invite anyone who has evidence against Megascope to present it to the relevant authorities,” Ngatia added.
At the same time, the incoming governor this week held a meeting with a group of single mothers from 30 different wards in Nairobi. The women brought forward the challenges they face on a daily basis as they pledged their support for his candidature. Ngatia in return offered to empower them through paying for their membership fee in the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He also committed himself into helping them open up businesses for registered chamas. Next week, Ngatia is planned to meet another group from another 35 wards until all 85 wards are represented
