Sakaja faces more scrutiny after paying Sh1.4 billion legal pending bills

The Nairobi governor Johnson Sakaja is on the spot after it emerged that his administration has paid about Sh1.4 billion to 44 law firms despite concerns of huge legal pending bills.

  Data from the Controller of Budget  (COB) revealed that Sakaja’s administration requested COB to be facilitated to pay the law firms.

 In what could raise eyebrows, COB avers that most of the payments involved cases of the county executive and only about Sh29 million was used to pay for a case at the county assembly.

 According to COB, in 2023 alone, the county government made requisitions totalling about Sh865 million to pay the law firms.

 Some of the law firms include Nyareru and Associates Advocates (Sh1.2 million), Diro Advocates LLP (Sh1.8 million), Nyareru and Associates Advocates (Sh2 million), Makallah Theuri Advocates (Sh 2.7 million).

 The last requisition of Sh 60 million was made in January this year to pay eleven firms.

 They include Okatch and Partners (Sh27 million), Sirma and Company (Sh21 million), Murimi Murango (Sh17 million), Adrian Kamotho (Sh10 million) and Jamal Bake Ad-vocates (Sh25 million).

  Other law firms include Roba and Associates (Sh14.7 million), Swanya and Company Advocates (Sh85 million), Mugoye Associates (Sh85 million), Momanyi and Associ-ates (Sh34 million) among others.

 For the county assembly some of the firms paid include Makalla Theuri Sh1.8 million, Maina and Macharia Advocates Sh3.5 million, Musyoka Mogaka Advocates Sh2 mil-lion among others.

Odera Were and Company Advocates are owed millions pending for the last decade since their last payment of Sh60 million in 2015.

 The requisition comes even after Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu  raised serious concerns over huge pending legal bills amounting to billions Nairobi county owes law-yers.

 “Analysis of the revenue against the legal fees revealed that 11 advocates out of a legal list of 832 cases, are owed a total of Sh10,741 ,451 ,631 million,” reads the re-port.

 According to the report, the 11 lawyers are owed Sh10.7 billion. More shocking is that the same 11 lawyers represent 50 percent  of the legal pending bills, while a fur-ther 121 lawyers are owed Sh10.2 billion by the County. The payment of legal fees has been a thorn in the flesh for previous administrations at City Hall.  Nairobi County owes contractors and suppliers more than Sh100 billion in pending bills.

 Many are however asking why City Hall prioritised the payment to the legal firms while other bills are long overdue.

 In January 2022, Sakaja  appointed a 12-member committee to review and verify the Sh2.1 billion legal services pending bills owed by the county.   The Committee on the Review, Scrutiny and Verification of Pending Legal Bills is led by advocate Kamotho Waiganjo as the chairperson and Sylvia Mueni Kassanga as vice-chairperson.

On June 27, 2023, the Controller of Budgets Margaret Nyakang’o declined a request by City Hall to approve Sh1.3 billion to pay legal firms for services provided.

Instead, she demanded various clarifications on the requisitions.

The CoB said given the schedule of 19 firms to be paid does not include the invoices’ dates and therefore, it is difficult to ascertain whether they are pending bills or re-lated to works done and invoiced in the current financial year.

“Please, therefore, revise the schedule to include the date of the invoices and attached copies of the payment vouchers for the 19 firms,” she said in a letter to CEC in charge of finance and economic planning Charles Kerich dated June 27.

confidence tricksters had settled in wait for their victims on Saturday, the group had the audacity of attempting to bribe their way out,” he added.

As deterrence, Government institutions have been cautioned to vet and oust disreputable Government officers abetting such criminal activity which appears pervasive due to lax securing of Government institutions and a growing appetite for quick money by public officers.

In April this year, the government warned that it will not condone public servants engaging in corrupt deals but will instead take swift legal and administrative actions to tame the vice.

Chief of Staff and Head of Public Service, Felix Koskei, said servants found culpable of the offence will have their ill-gotten assets frozen corruption and held by state as deterrent in a move aimed at containing increased incidences of graft in public institutions.

He also said the government was currently undertaking a scrutiny of public servants accounts and stock of assets owned before swift legal actions are taken against those found suspect.

Koskei who decried the runaway graft in public offices singled out the procurement, accounts and finance departments as the most fertile grounds for corruption incidences due to interests of billions of shillings under their watch.

Koskei said corruption within government is a thorny issue which has derailed development agenda, hampered service delivery, led to loss of public resources and has tainted Kenya’s image in the international stage.

In addition, he said procurement personnel must seal all loopholes that lead to loss of public funds through means such as manipulation of procurement information and sharing with potential tenderers, soliciting awards from supplies and directing payments to proxies.

Consequently, Koskei the government agencies in the entire value chain including Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, the Director of Criminal investigations and Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions has been empowered financially to rein in graft culprits.

Few years ago, Harambee Annex, former Deputy President William Ruto’s office was grappling with an embarrassing tag of acting as a conduit in a high profile fraud racket involving fake government tenders, among others.

Former Sports Cabinet Secretary Rashid Echesa was arrested for allegedly using the building to lure victims into a multibillion fake military tender.

There were two other almost similar cases where one businessman lost over Sh300 million and another lost Sh116 million in a fake security surveillance supply tender.

In another case in August 2018, seven criminals were arrested for masquerading as officers from the office of the DP, after they were said to have fraudulently used the office of the deputy president to obtain the gadgets from various organisations and individuals.

The suspects were caught in Nairobi’s Westlands with more than 700 laptops, valued at Sh320 million which had been obtained from businessman Stephen Musyoka, who owns Makindu Motors Limited on grounds that they were being delivered to the DP’s office.

Government vehicles were also recovered in the operation conducted on Kyuna Road in Westlands.

Musyoka made an official complaint at Athi-River police station on August 13 regarding a failed tender where he supplied 2800 pieces of laptops to the office of the Dep-uty President that led him to loss of Sh181 million.

“Makindu Motors Limited was made to believe that they had been awarded a tender to supply 2,800 HP laptops by one Joy Wangari Kamau (alias Miss. Muhoro), who held out to be in charge of procurement at the office of the Deputy President as well as the Secretary to Mr Wanyonyi who held out as the Personal Assistant of the Deputy President,” the complaint read in part.