East African Spectre: Just How Much is Raila Odinga’s Gas Company Worth

Kenya’s former right honorable Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s East Africa Spectre Limited was on Monday, 27 March, vandalized by unknown goons during the ongoing opposition-led national demonstrations.

East African Spectre, a gas cylinder manufacturing plant, was founded by Raila’s father, Oginga Odinga.

The company, which boasts to be the leading LPG cylinder manufacture and validation company in East and Central Africa, is estimated to be worth above Ksh500 million.

[Photo of the vandalized window at the East African Spectre Limited premises. Courtesy]

Speaking previously on the foundation of the company, Raila noted that former Ugandan leader Idi Amin Dada’s actions in Uganda were responsible for its birth in 1970.

He mentioned that while teaching at the University of Nairobi, he was approached by an Indian technician who had a friend from Uganda selling his workshop wares, to get funds to escape to Britain.

Raila narrated: ”When teaching at the University of Nairobi, an Indian who was a technician came to me and said he had an Indian friend kicked out from Uganda. This Indian had uprooted all machinery from his workshop in Jinja and brought them to his friend’s yard in Parklands.

” I looked at all the machines there, the welding machines, sheet metal cutting machines, and the entire machinery from a workshop. He was selling them for 12,000 which I did not have. My salary was Sh 2000 per month. I had an Opel, left-hand drive which I had brought from Germany with me. I sold that Opel and got the Sh 12000 to pay that "kalasinga" and I got the machinery to start my limited, East African Spectre Limited today,” he stated.

Upon purchase of the workshop machinery, Raila says he went and rented a warehouse along Kingston Road (now Kampala Road) in Industrial Area to start manufacturing steel windows and steel doors before European businessmen approached him to manufacture for them gas cylinders.

Established in 1971, the now East Africa Spectre started as Standard Processing Equipment Construction and Erection hence the name Spectre. It was located on Lusingeti road off Likoni Road in Nairobi’s Industrial Area.

The firm’s, Nairobi office, which is the headquarters of the company, was vandalized by suspected goons who smashed windows of the building located along Mombasa Road, Nairobi.

Speaking on the incident to the press, the company’s Security and Safety Manager Hamphrey Waswa noted that the goons escaped after committing the crime.

“A group of around 50 people on motorbikes arrived at this premise escorted by four unmarked Land Cruisers vehicles. They later escaped towards the Southern Bypass," Waswa mentioned, adding that luckily, no one was injured during the incident.

[Photo of the vandalized window at the East African Spectre Limited premises. Courtesy]

East African Spectre Limited has partnered with most of East Africa’s most famed petroleum stations such as Total Energies, Vivo Energy, Rubis, Ola Energy, Lake Oil, and many more.

Producing over 2 million cylinders per year, the company serves nine countries, including Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Malawi, Uganda, and DRC Congo.

Dr. Oburu Odinga, Raila’s brother is the chairman of the firm, while his wife, Ida Odinga the managing director of the company.

Speaking on the invasion of the firm, the Azimio leader condemned, “Today they have sent goons to President Uhuru Kenyatta’s farm and sent individuals to my Spectre firm. That’s a stupid, cowardly, and foolish move.

“We are doing politics within the law and the constitution allows protests. It allows Kenyans to meet and converge and protest within the law…. We are not going to relent until the cost of living is brought down and the server is opened,” he added.

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