Report exposes rot in Sakaja’s pet school feeding project
By Mercy Mwai, August 7, 2025The Dishi na County school feeding programme introduced by Governor Johnson Sakaja and the procurement of affordable housing programme is riddled with irregularities and doubtful spending, a new report shows.
The Auditor General Nancy Gathungu report has also flagged various expenditures relating to the management of executive scholarships and ward bursaries, procurement of insurance services, consultancy service and street lighting projects.
In her report for the financial year ending June 2024 for Nairobi City County, Gathungu has detailed how the devolved unit is rocked with massive irregularities and irregular expenditure amounting to billions of shillings.
On the Dishi na County programme, Gathungu said the implementer of the project was paid more money than what was agreed. She revealed that the county paid the implementer Sh30 per plate yet it was supposed to pay Sh25 as learners were paying Sh5 per plate.
According to the report, a review of invoices and payments made indicated that the organisation invoiced a total of Sh345.96 million at a rate of Sh25 per plate and was paid Sh262.26 million during the financial year under review yet it was noted that learners paid the organisation the Sh5 directly per plate for the meals provided.
“Therefore the County Executive should have paid the organisation Sh20 per plate, as part of the contract cost of Sh25. Instead, the County paid an amount of Sh25 for each plate served,” the report reads.
In addition, the County Executive engaged Food for Education for a pilot exercise. However, no agreement or Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the County Executive and the company, therefore the audit could not establish how the company was engaged to provide the services.
The report has further raised questions regarding the accountability of Sh145.7 million (Euro 1,005,000) given by the Embassy of France as financial support to Food for Education for delivering hot and nutritious meals for 25,000 of the most vulnerable children in public primary and ECDE schools in Nairobi County
“The audit could not ascertain the accountability for these funds. In addition, there were no established measures by the County Executive regarding the management of donations received, as there were no guidelines in place for handling such donations,” the report reveals.
Cracked kitchen
Further the report has also flagged the county over the construction of Central Kitchen awarded at a contract sum of Sh32.5 million that indicated that only two bidders submitted tenders.
According to the report, a review of each evaluator’s scores indicated that none of the evaluators signed their individual score sheets, both bidders were classified as responsive and evaluated based on the set technical criteria, which they both met yet the tender evaluation report stated that bidder Number One was non-responsive and eliminated at the preliminary stage, contradicting the individual committee members’ scores.
The report further reveals that physical verification of Central Kitchen for the programme in October, 2024 revealed several issues at the Toi Primary Kitchen as there are visible cracks despite the kitchen being completed only a year earlier, no electricity meter installed and no water connectivity. Instead, the implementer connected the water at their own cost, there was poor workmanship of the pavements and the installed gas pipe was not connected to the cooking vessels.
At the Central Kitchen at Mutuini Primary School, it was noted that the kitchen was feeding 17 schools including five high schools and the children were paying Sh30 per plate for their meals, which exceeded the programme’s intended scope and was therefore deemed irregular.
With regards to Procurements in Affordable Housing Projects, the report has fingered the county executive for not engaging the Attorney General to clear contracts amounting to Sh31 billion for the construction of houses in Woodley Estate Phase One and Kariobangi North Estate Phase One after they entered into a joint venture for the design, finance, build and sale of the houses.
The move, the report says, is contrary to Section 134(2) of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act, 2015 which states that an Accounting Officer of a procuring entity shall ensure that all contracts of a value exceeding Sh5 billion are cleared by the Attorney-General before they are signed.