Nairobi County Finance CEC Charles Kerich and his Chief Officer Aisha Abdi at the Nairobi County Assembly
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has swung into action to investigate the Nairobi City County Government finance department following revelations that the county paid tenders for alleged supply of non existent good and services, deals that saw the county government loose hundreds of millions.
Following the hot pursuit of the DCI investigators, the Nairobi City Government County Executive Committee member for finance and Economic Planning Charles Kerich and his Chief Officer Asha Abdi have reportedly gone on a trip to Instanbul, Turkey, a move that is seen as a way to temporarily avoid facing the sleuths.
According to our sources at City Hall, Kerich and Asha took the trip abroad without waiting for necessary approvals even as the temperatures rise at in the Governor Johnson Sakaja administration due to the grave allegations of graft.
“Temperatures at City Hall have raised very high due to the DCI investigations. (CEC Charles) Kerich and the finance chief officer Asha have both taken to their heels and gone on an abrupt trip to Instanbul. They are trying to buy time before facing the DCI investigators and now the Sakaja government is in very bad books because of wanton corruption,” said an isider who sought anonymity.
The DCI is acting on important leads which could help in recovering hundreds of millions suspected to have been lost in fraudulent payments to nine companies which were awarded illegal tenders for alleged supply of non existent goods and services.
The Director of Criminal Investigations Mohammed Amin, through the head of investigations beaureu at the DCI David Birech wrote a letter to Governor Sakaja and the county secretary in forming them of the impending investigations arising from a red flag raised by the Controller of Budget Margret Nyakang’o declined to approve Ksh 1.5 billion expenditure requisition that had been submitted by the Nairobi County Government which lacked the requisite supporting documents. The county government had in place plans to effect payments running to the excess of an amount of Ksh 2 billion to controvercially selected 19 law firms in alleged pending bills for legal services which were never offered to the county government.
According to the DCI, Kerich and the finance department in the Sakaja administration were involved in the fraudulent dealings in which sector heads at City Hall connived with procurement officers, dubious contractors and county treasury officials to fleece hundreds of millions from the county government.
The county government was planning to make the payments in favour of ficticious supplies of building and road construction materials sending out an expenditure requisition of an initial 750 million to the Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o’s office for clearance which was declined with Nyakang’o demanding that the county government provides evidence of the services rendered including tenders, invoices and other requirements approved for the payments.
The Nairobi City County government sought clearance from the office of the controller of budget to make payments of upto 900 million for alleged ‘air supply’ of building construction materials.
The documents submitted for perusal and clearance were however found to have been backdated and other forged to super impose the signature of a former Chief Officer for the department of Roads and public works.
