City Hall on the spot over Sh6.9billion stalled projects

The Nairobi County assembly is probing City Hall over stalled projects worth Sh6.9 billion, whose construction were done poorly.

The Nairobi County Assembly Public Accounts Committee is investigating road contractors and procurement officers over failure to deliver on county projects despite payments being made.

The committee chaired by Mabatini MCA Wilfred Odalo is also probing claims of interference in procurement, double issuance of tenders and late completion of projects.

“This is a song we’ve been singing for the last five years. MCAs want to see ward-based projects implemented and contractors paid,” Ogada said.

This comes after Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu pointed out that some of the projects had double issuance of tenders as well as variation of contracts.

She detailed the rot in an audit report for the financial year ended June 30, 2020, that was tabled before the Nairobi County Assembly last week and which the County Assembly is using to open investigations into the projects and contract awards.

The auditor’s report notes that roads, transport and public works totalling Sh4.67 billion were delayed as well as ward development projects valued about Sh418.6 million.

Sh1.8 billion worth of projects were either abandoned, suspended or terminated altogether during the fiscal period under review.

“No plausible explanations were provided by management for the unsatisfactory implementation of the projects,” said Gathungu.

“In their incomplete state, the projects have not yielded the benefits expected of them in spite of public funds totalling Sh6.26 billion spent on their execution,” she added.

The representatives have on several occasions accused the Executive of taking them in circles since 2014 over the execution of ward-based projects which have stalled owing to delayed payments.

The impasse has often seen Nairobi residents miss out on such projects running into billions of shillings every financial year.

With the advent of Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) in 2020, MCAs went ahead to move the projects from the office of the governor to NMS under the Directorate of Public Works.

Further, they created a special account, General Purpose Account, to be used to hold the Sh1.5 billion allocated for Nairobi’s 85 wards.