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Sakaja on the spot over Sh93million heist by 13 firms for unsupplied goods, services under probe by Eacc

In their last financial year report, the anti-corruption watchdog revealed that the city-county paid Sh93 million to the said companies but they did not supply anything.

The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) is investigating payments made by Nairobi City County to 13 companies that did not supply goods or services to the Johnson Sakaja administration valued at Sh93million.

In its 2023/24 annual report, the anti-corruption watchdog reveals that the city-county paid Sh93million to the said companies but they did not supply anything.

“An inquiry has been launched into allegations of irregular payments to 13 companies for non-delivery of goods or services during the 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 Financial years,” EACC states in their report.

This comes as the anti-corruption commission is also probing into allegations of abuse of office against a county employee who received benefits from various suppliers contracted by the county between 2016 and 2022 amounting to Ksh 40.8 million.

As part of the inquiries into the Sakaja-led administration, EACC revealed that they are also probing allegations of irregular procurement of goods in the award of Tender  No. NCC/MWKRS/T/109/2022-2023 for supply and delivery of electrical materials for street lighting in the 2022/23 financial year.

Investigations by The Informer Media Group last year revealed that in June and July 2023, a total of 27 companies were beneficiaries of dubious payments by City Hall.

Documents seen by the Informer Media Group indicated that the first set of companies cumulatively got paid Ksh 290,331,364  million on 13/07/2023 at the time the county had received over 70 billion from the treasury just before the end of the 2022/2023 Financial Year.

Sources at City Hall revealed that the county may have lost close to Ksh 500 million in the same period as the finance department rushed to spend the money through irregular payments before the official start of the 2023/2024 FY.

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A second set of companies whose directors and managers are well known to the city administrator was also paid Ksh 60,942,854 million with some of the companies being registered by proxies belonging to employees of the county.

The report by EACC comes when the Controller of Budget last year raised queries over the Sakaja administration prioritising paying lawyers more than any other suppliers of the county.

Documents seen by The Informer Media Group reveal that as of June last year, a total of 44 law firms pocketed Ksh 1.3 billion amidst concerns over the huge legal pending bills by the county.

The Ksh 1.3 billion was paid on diverse dates between October 2022 and January last year.

In the current financial year, Suppliers and contractors in Nairobi City County are set to receive an additional Ksh 1.26 billion for pending bill payments following the county assembly’s approval of the supplementary budget for the 2024/25 Financial Year.

The allocation aims to reduce the county’s outstanding debts to its creditors.

The allocated amount represents just 1.03 per cent of Nairobi’s total pending bills, which stand at Sh121.06 billion, the highest among all  the 47 counties.

According to the Controller of Budget’s report for the first quarter of the FY 2024-2025, counties collectively owe Sh194.01 billion to suppliers and contractors.

Of this, Ksh 149.50 billion is for recurrent expenditure while Ksh 44.51 billion is for development. Nairobi City County alone accounts for 62 per cent of these pending bills.

 

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