Rival corruption axises turn City Hall into a battlefield, fight for control of public coffers

A vicious battle between rival corruption axises has held the Nairobi county government hostage with each group fighting for the control of public coffers particularly in awarding of contracts and processing of payments, investigations by The Informer Media Group have established.

On one hand is a team of youthful but reclusive tenderpreneurs enjoying unholy union with City Hall officials now fighting to exit the influence of shadowy group of well-oiled businessmen and their co-conspirators serving in both the executive and Nairobi County Assembly who enjoyed control in the previous administrations.

The ongoing bear-knuckle fight hit the climax a fortnight ago, August 7, 2023 with the sacking of the embattled former Nairobi County Attorney Lydia Kwamboka by Nairobi governor Johnson Sakaja through acting County Secretary Patrick Analo.

According to insiders, Kwamboka’s dismissal three years before expiry of her renewed term arose from disagreements over Sh1.4billion legal fees payments flagged by the office of the Controller of Budget (CoB) Margaret Nyakang’o.

Kwamboka was sacked under unclear circumstances after authorising Sh1.4billion controversial payments to a select few law firms.

Kwamboka has since been grilled by detectives at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) headquarters in connection to the alleged fraudulent legal fees processing

“We are grateful for the service rendered to the county during the transitional period following the lapse of our Employment contract dated October 1, 2019, on December 31, 2022. The office of the county attorney and legal sector has grown and continues to be a critical arm of the county executive.” The termination letter signed by Analo reads in part.

Analo indicated that Kwamboka’s contract expired in December 2022 and that she had been assisting in the transitional period.

“Following the appointment of an acting County Attorney, you are now requested to officially hand over.” Analo added.

Analo further told Kwamboka that her terminal dues will be computed as provided in her employment contract.

However, controversy on Kwamboka’s contract and when it was supposed to expire has since deepened after it emerged that former governor Ann Kananu had extended it for another 6 years effective July 13, 2020.

This means that her contract was to expire in July 2026.

“Your term of service has been extended accordingly to six years with effect from the commencement of the Office of the County Attorney Act 2020 i.e July 13, 2020.” A letter by Kananu dated July 20, 2022, addressed to Kwamboka says.

Kananu cited The Office of the County Attorney Act, 2020 when extending Kwamboka’s contract.

According to the Act, a county attorney is supposed to serve for six years.

Section Four of the Office of the County Attorney’s Act, 2020, provides for the office of the county attorney and requires that the officeholder be appointed by the governor, with the approval of the county assembly.

Kwamboka is not new to controversy.

During her tenure at City Hall, Kwamboka allegedly enlisted the services of a law firm linked to her, Maina Njenga & Kwamboka Advocates that received over Sh300 million in legal fees thus exposing her to possible conflict of interest.

Kwamboka was vetted and her name was approved by the assembly in April 2018.

Five months later on September 19, 2018, Kwamboka, alongside three county officials, was suspended by former Nairobi governor Mike Sonko.

Barely a year after suspension, she later made a comeback at City Hall with Kananu extending her contract to run until 2026.

Payment of legal fees in Nairobi has been the center of controversy with an amount currently standing close to Sh21 billion.

In July 2021, Kwamboka was impeached for practicing without a valid license and abuse of office.

A week before her termination, Kwamboka appeared before the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee where she accused the Finance department of assuming her roles.

“We go through the legal files as the legal department and once we are satisfied, we forward the file to the finance for payment. The legal department has the mandate to decide which companies are to be paid, not finance.” Kwamboka told the MCAs.

It is then that the governor questioned a series of payments to legal firms including a Sh250 million payment to Kuza Firms and Allied Limited for a 2.5 acre piece of land belonging to AEF Reuben Primary School.

The aforementioned firm is associated with politician Cyrus Jirongo. The payment was made in 2019.

The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has since received a petition from one Bryan Yongo, urging it to look into the payment that was made even after the firm declined to handover the title deed in exchange for the money.

Court documents show that Jirongo used the title deed to obtain a Sh20 billion loan.

She received her sacking letter barely a week after she appeared before the County Assembly Justice and Legal Committee where she expressed her frustrations by some officials from the Finance Department.

She told the committee that she had written an advisory to the finance department, that they should focus on paying law firms that are owed a small amount of money amounting to Sh60million.

The Legal department headed by the sacked County Attorney had prepared a list of firms’ owed small amounts.

“We go through the legal files as the legal department and once we are satisfied, we forward the file to the finance for payment. It is the legal department that has the mandate to decide which companies are to be paid, not finance,” Kwamboka told the MCAs.

Further, she told the committee that instead, firms that are owed huge amounts were prioritised with the county paying a total of Sh1.4 billion.

She also told the committee that a number of legal files had disappeared from the legal department’s civil registry.

She said some of the vanished files ended up at the finance department and payment was effected without approval of the legal department.

In June this year, Controller of Budget (CoB) Margaret Nyakang’o declined to approve Sh1.5billion expenditure requisitions they made to pay legal fees and development expenditure made without providing proper supportive documents.

Further, City Hall honchos made an additional clearance request of Sh379million categorised as development expenditure of building and construction supplies claimed to be ‘air supply’.

“The schedule of 19 firms to be paid does not include the invoices’ dates; therefore, it is difficult to ascertain whether they are pending bills or related 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 19firms.” A correspondence by the CoB addressed to Sakaja through the Finance and Economic Planning County Executive Committee Member Charles Kerich reads in part.

Through a letter dated June 27, 2023, Ref:COB/NBI/001/171(11), Nyakang’o notes that the Nairobi county government did not provide the pending bills payment plan that would enable the matching of individual payees to the requisitions.

“Further, it is difficult to match the proposed payments with the pending bills report earlier presented to this office.” The CoB adds in part.

Sakaja’s administration made the twin requisitions vide letters referenced as Ref NRB/FIN/1/2824/2023 dated June 19, 2023 amounting to Sh562, 124,660 and Ref NRB/FIN/1/2825/2023 dated June 19, 2023 amounting to Sh509, 152, 645.

Nyakang’o instructed County Treasury to provide the basis for the legal fees, status of each court case including copies of judgement where applicable.

Also, the CoB’s office demanded a clear breakdown detailing the criteria used in the selection of the said payments, the recommended ‘first-in-first-out’ method used in identifying the bills and information on whether the proposed payment is a partial payment or a final payment to the legal firms.

She said she wrote a memo dated August 2, 2023, to the Chief Officer of the finance department asking for clarification on payment criteria.

“We would like to understand the criteria used by your office in determining matters to be paid despite the sector having a budget to settle the small matters and what happened to the allocated budget.” A letter Kwamboka tabled before the committee reads in part.

Last year, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission asked the Nairobi County Secretary to supply it with case files handled by 26 law firms.

The Anti-Corruption agency requested files between 2013 and 2020, including details of the cases, letters of instruction and contract agreements.