Part One: Spotlight on Isiolo county over questionable payout to firms marred in past dubious dealings at City Hall in Nairobi
According to sources familiar with the transactions, payments totaling close to Sh200million have were authorised and paid out.
The Isiolo county government is on the spot following revelations of a multi-million-shilling payout to firms previously flagged for questionable dealings in past procurement scandals running into billions of shillings particularly with the Nairobi City County, investigations by The Informer Media Group can authoritatively reveal.
According to sources familiar with the transactions, payments totaling close to Sh200million have were authorised and paid out.
Records seen by our team show that the tenderpreneurs who have a dark past in scandalous dealing with the Nairobi county government from 2013 to 2022 have either used similar companies or new companies but still hold the directorship.
Some of the firms that have secured lucrative contracts have previously, or their ownership been implicated in dubious, inflated contracts, irregular tendering processes, and unfinished projects with Nairobi Nairobi county government especially in garbage collection, supplies of goods and feeds during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The latest revelations are likely to spark a protracted audit queries and even the intervention of oversight bodies.
“Some of the tenders were awarded through flawed process,” an insider who spoke on condition of anonymity revealed.
Isiolo county government is not new to controversy and insider fraudulent dealings by senior county officials in collusion to unscrupulous suppliers.
Last year in 2024, the High Court in Nairobi granted the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) permission to recover over Sh7.2million from 13 Isiolo county government employees after fraudulently acquiring it through fraudulent schemes.
In the case ruled by Justice Esther Maina, the amount was found to have been embezzled through fraudulent payments made by the County Government in 2014 to a private company Fish Nets Enterprises Ltd owned by one of the county officials.
The private company is said to have neither supplied anything nor rendered any services.
“The county officials used forged documents, pretending that the company had supplied assorted food items including 300 bags of rice, 250 bags of sugar, 400 bags of maize flour, 485 bags of wheat flour, and 300 X 20 litres of cooking oil,” a statement by EACC read in part.
While delivering her judgement on March 20, Justice Maina ruled that all the accused were jointly liable to compensate Sh7,220,000 plus interest at court rates from 2014 when they received the funds.
Of the amount, Sh5.1 million held in a bank account registered under Bonaya Dida Bonya and Qabale Wario Halake will be recovered. The amount had been frozen pending the hearing and determination of the case.
Part of the accused includes three former chief officers and a Personal Assistant to the former Isiolo governor.
In our Part Two and final series, we bring to you blow by blow account of the firms implicated, amounts paid, good and services as well as the web of ownership involved.
