Team Simoco

The Kroll Report appears to have amalgamated two separate ministries, the Ministry for Trade and Industry, Tourism and East African Cooperation and the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Biwott was Minister for Trade and Industry, Tourism and East African Cooperation from 1999 to 2001. He was not, at any point, Minister for Transport and Communications.

– Biwotts Lawyer

KROLL ON BIWOTT-SHARES AND COMPANY INTERESTS

KROLL ON BIWOTT – SHARES IN TEAM SIMOCO

Kroll alleged that Nicholas Biwott, owns shares in Team Simoco nominally through HZ Group, and ‘it is almost certain’ awarded a contract to Team Simoco when Nicholas Biwott, was ‘the then Minister of Communications’, the tender process being ‘far from transparent’. [No source identified]

DID KROLL GET IT RIGHT?

Biwott’s lawyer said: Nicholas Biwott has never been the Minister of Communications.
Nicholas Biwott has never owned or had any interest in Team Simoco.
HZ Group has never owned nor has it had any interest in Team Simoco.

Neither as a Minister, public figure or private individual, has Nicholas Biwott ever been involved in any dealings with Team Simoco.

THE SOURCE INVESTIGATES…

The Source has found no evidence to support the Kroll Report’s claims during the course of our research.

A number of newspaper articles report that Team Simoco was owned by the Team Telecom Group, which was in turn owned by Spice plc, a UK-based public company. This is consistent with data available from UK Companies House, which indicates that until May 2004, Team Simoco was owned by Team Telecommunications Ltd, which in turn was owned by Spice Holdings plc.

The Source reviewed Spice plc’s list of members between 2002 and 2004. Biwott does not appear as a shareholder of the company and nor do any of the HZ Group of companies known to us. Moreover, no single shareholder owned over 50 percent of the shareholding of the company.

MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS?

The Kenya Kroll Report’s claim that Biwott was Minister for Trade, Industry and Communications is odd. According to The Source’s research, no such position ever existed.

The Kroll Report appears to have amalgamated two separate ministries, the Ministry for Trade and Industry, Tourism and East African Cooperation and the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Biwott was Minister for Trade and Industry, Tourism and East African Cooperation from 1999 to 2001. He was not, at any point, Minister for Transport and Communications.
It was also stated by Kroll that Biwott was Minister for Communications. Again, this is incorrect.

Given that Biwott held neither of these positions it seems likely that his name was mistakenly added to this section of the Kenya Kroll Report, or perhaps substituted for another minister’s name who the person leaking the report did not want to implicate. This seems even more likely because, as well as the references to the Ministry of Communications, the Kenya Kroll Report refers to ‘his previous tenure of office … under the Moi government’. This implies that the individual in question was, at the time of writing, in office with the subsequent Kibaki government some time between 2002 (when Kibaki became president) and 2004 (when the Kroll report was drafted). Biwott, however, was never a member of the Kibaki government.

The presentation and wording of this section also gives rise to the concern that it may have been manipulated before publication. Biwott is referred to as ‘Minister of Trade, Industry and Communications’ and just over into the next page as ‘Minister of Communications’, the former page having the appearance of a poor quality photocopy and the latter a neatly typed document.

TEAM SIMOCO AND HZ GROUP

The Kroll Report asserts (Statement 3) that Biwott was the majority shareholder of Team Simoco, with his shares held nominally through the HZ Group. The Kroll Report admits however, that there was ‘considerable confusion’ over the exact ownership of the company. The two statements cannot be reconciled.

The Report goes on to suggest that such confusion is not unusual in Kenyan companies, especially those linked to local politicians. Yet in statement (2), the Kroll Report recognises that Team Simoco is not registered in Kenya, and as The Source has revealed, Team Simoco is a UK company, a fact that the Kenya Kroll Report recognised in statements (5) and (6).

The Kroll Report also suggested that Charles Field-Marsham, Biwott’s son-in-law, held shares in Team Simoco through HZ Group but The Source’s investigation revealed that he does not and has never owned shares, or had a beneficial interest in the HZ Group. Charles Field-Marsham, is not listed as a shareholder of Team Simoco or its parent companies, according to corporate filings. Again, The Source did not find any evidence to support Kroll’s hypothesis.

TEAM SIMCO AND A GOVERNMENT ‘ROLLING CONTRACT’

The Kroll Report claims in statement (4) that Biwott, who it inaccurately describes as the Minister for Communications (Biwott has never been Minister of Communications), ‘almost certainly awarded’ a contract to Team Simoco, and in statement (6), the Report states that Team Simoco had a rolling contract with the Kenyan Government lasting over five years.

This accusation however seems not to be based on verifiable facts because Team Simoco Ltd was only established in 2002 while the police communications project was terminated in 2003, according to press reports.

According to an article published in a UK local newspaper the Derby Evening Telegraph in January 2004, Team Simoco Ltd was spun out of Simoco International Ltd. The same article reported that Simoco International Ltd was formed in 1996, when it acquired the Private Mobile Radio division of Philips.

The Source was unable to clarify from media reports whether it was the parent group Simoco International Ltd which signed the contract(s) with the Kenyan Government or one of its subsidiaries. However, the corporate filings for Simoco International indicate the majority of its shares were owned by Cinven, a large private equity company. Neither Biwott nor any of the HZ Group of companies, of which The Source is aware of, is listed as shareholders, nor is Charles Field-Marsham a shareholder in HZ or Team Simoco.