The Nairobi County government officials and unscrupulous garbage contractors could be controlling an intricate web of graft involving fictitious payments amounting to hundreds of millions as internal audit queries dating back seven years ago are yet to be resolved, The Informer has established.
Payment for garbage collection and legal fees have been cited as the key avenues used to embezzle billions of shillings from public coffers at City Hall.
Currently, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (Eacc) is investigating at least ten law firms for allegedly colossal amounts of money through fictitious invoices.
In particular, queries surrounding Sh61million payment made to nineteen garbage contractors in 2016 and was flagged as suspicious payout are yet to be answered.
According to the then payment list generated by the then Nairobi County Environment Executive Engineer Peter Kimori, his office has sanctioned payment of Sh61, 167, 289 for garbage collection.
However, the payment has been flagged as suspect.
According to the controversial list of payment seen by The Informer, Panafrican Equipment whose area of operation was in Dandora dumpsite was paid the highest amount of Sh24, 500,000.
Sifa Cleaning and Bins Services is set to get Sh7, 246,261 while Njigu Enterprises was allocated Sh7million.
Their areas of operation were Ruaraka and Kasarani respectively.
“The procedure of listing who was to be paid and the amount was shrouded in controversy and is yet to be settled.” Our source intimated.
Interestingly, the payments were not made through the IFMIS system or Internet banking facility to ensure due diligence is conducted before payment is made.
Dorok Enterprises was paid for improvement of Dandora dumpsite at a cost of Sh3.5million.
Others are Puka Investment (Sh2million), Nep Hardware(Sh2.6million), Victoria Builders Ltd(Sh242,818), Bvacrose Company (Sh1.7million), Beta Best Enterprises(Sh800,421), Gikkar Enterprises(Sh1.1million), Ramsay Enterprises(Sh670,000) , Jeskar Enterprises (Sh1million) , Vineyard Holdings (Sh3.5million), Shujaa Industries (Sh1.3million), Tema Home Care Ltd(Sh1.1Million), Foton Limited (sh2million) and Usafi Soldi Waste Management (Sh719,887) respectively.
“Some equipment which were paid for at Dandora dumpsite were not even operational. They had stalled long time ago.” Our source added.
The then governor Evans Kidero just like his two predecessors; impeached former governor Mike Mbuvi Sonko and incumbent Anne Kananu, lamented that an intricate cartel of suppliers and garbage collection cartels is behind clandestine fictitious payments by generating fake invoices.
In December 2015, twenty four contracted private garbage collectors were paid in excess of Sh200 after staging a mass go-slow protesting delayed payments by City Hall.
In 2015, Mohamed Bashir Ibrahim and Mohamed Adan Ibrahim, directors of Peposi Freight ltd were charged for defrauding the county at least Sh7.6million fictitious works.
The firm was registered on December 16, 2014 using a fake certificate CPR2014/169610 and an account opened on December 20, on a Saturday when the payment was done.
Ordinarily, Saturday is not an official working day but it remains unclear how the payment was transacted.
The same day the account was opened, Sh5, 000 was deposited into the account by a customer only identified as Mohammed.
Later in the day, a cheque deposit (cheque number 134) of Sh7, 612, 540 was made.
The bank detected the scam through account number 01148230311300.
The account was opened by two individuals who indicated their names as Mohammed Adan Ibrahim and Mohammed Bashir Ibrahim, both of whom identity card numbers are withheld and belong to Post office Box number 21140-00100 Nairobi allegedly using forged Certificate of registration disguised as from registrar of companies four days before the payment was done.
And on December 30, 2014, after the bank raised questions, the cheque was recalled.
In 2013, Kidero blacklisted twenty four companies said to have been involved in air supply.
However, some were controversially cleared by a taskforce appointed by governor’s office.