The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission ( EACC) is increasingly getting shocked with the overwhelming public complaints on corrupt dealings that are escalating at Nairobi City County Government.
Worrying is how county officials especially those on junior positions have acquired great of wealth within a short period of time.
It has been established that the commission has also notified Governor Johnson Sakaja over massive corruption being done by both senior and junior officers.
In the last two months, the commision has been following of various corruption cases involving dubious payments believed to be over Sh100million.
Currently under investigation is corrupt dealing that could see the county lose over Sh60 million.
The amount is suspected to be dubious payments made unprocedurally under the control of senior finance officers
The payments are believed to have been made to firms linked to officers in various departments with majority in the supply chain department.
Documents in our possession reveal that EACC has been investigating at least 11 officers from the county over the payments totaling Sh60,942,854.
The officers who have been grilled from the beginning of this month are Nelley Odanda( Human Resource Department)Alex Kayera (Administration Human Resource Department), Augustine Wafula( Devolution), Caleb Obumba (Supply Chain Management), Bernard Owiti(HRD), Rachel Mutambaki ( security), Francis Irungu (Supply Chain Management).
Also being investigated are Alukwe (Administration), Aggrey Sagwa ( Supply Chain Assistant), Leonard Biwot (Supply Chain Management) and Joshua Kimeu of Supply Chain Management as well.
The companies that received the suspected dubious payments for unknown supplies are Treber Solutions Limited that was paid Sh7,250,000, Jigsaw Construction Limited Sh7,386,957, Supreme ICT Solution Limited Sh5,030,000, Priceless Cleaning Services Sh 8,480,504, Nane Homes Company Limited Sh 5,308,615, Inventory Investment Limited Sh6,155,000, Freebery Consultants Sh6,020,102 ,Lennota Merchant Sh8,889,000, Malbe Construction Limited.
The EACC wrote to the officers on 27th October 2023 inviting them for interviews and statement recording.
“Reference is made to our letter ref. No.EACC./15/47/VOL.IX(48) dated 27th September 2023 and EACC.6/15/47 VOL 1X(61) dated 5th October 2023 requesting for documents and information,” read the letter wrote by Paschal K Mweu the Director of investigations.
This comes a few days after it was established that Finance Chief Officer Asha Abdi and Deputy Director for Trade Mohamed Bashit orchestrated payments amounting to millions of shillings to companies linked directly to them.
Bashit who runs the proxy companies has been on the radar of EACC for ammasing too much wealth in Sakaja’s first year in office.
One of the companies linked to Bashit is Lansen Investment Company Limited which was paid over Sh10million for supply and delivery of drainage materials with an LPO that was issued on February 2nd, 2003.
Bashit is good in forging signatures and diverting money from different votes at the county departments.
The offence of forgery is created and declared by section 349 of the Penal Code and states as follows: “Any person who forges any document or electronic record is guilty of an offence which, unless otherwise stated, is a felony and he is liable, unless owing to the circumstances of the forgery or the nature of the thing forged some other punishment is provided, to imprisonment for three years.”
Some of the vouchers signed by Mohamed Bashit are being investigated are voucher number 0050365 amounting to sh13,090,345, voucher 050366 amounting to Sh11, 793, 104, and 050364 amounting to sh10, 908, 620.
The vouchers according to a series of documents in our possession indicate that the payments were made and the Chief Officer received millions in kickbacks.
Governor Sakaj
a according to our sources was notified of the dubious payments but went silent and is suspected to have received millions of kickbacks as well.
This is happening at City Hall at a time most genuine suppliers who are owed less than Sh2million are hardly getting paid.
EACC has been contacting the county through the Governor and sometimes through the County Secretary on the need to seal Corruption loopholes but all to no avail.
Apart from Asha and Bashit, others being trailed secretly by detectives include Daniel Nguru commonly known as Tortoise, Martha Wambugu the deputy County Chief Finance Officer among others, who supervised the invoicing and other dealings.
Others that are yet to be summoned but are on EACC radder includes Vivian Mavua, Beth Muthoni, who has adopted cunning tricks to balance the books, Brian Oyando (former accountant trade), Mary Maina who has grown to be a big schemer along City Hall corridors.
Astonishing is how some Cityhall accountants that don’t have qualifications are being allocated senior positions, is allegedly that they coughed millions of shillings to Asha Abdi and some county assembly MCAs to maintain his position as the environment accountant.
Others that coughed the same includes Stephen Mafura, Caroline Mwangi (accountant roads), Ambrose Musau among others.
It has also been established that MCAs who got wind of the payments were silenced with bribes and the matter may not be scrutinized by the Public Accounts Committee.
Also shocking is how unqualified persons were hired to be accountants at the county.
A senior EACC official said that more county officials assets might be frozen after thorough probe.
“This time round it will shock many. We have a list of all assets that are owned by those junior officers, we will unmask everything.” He added
Kileleshwa MCA Robert Alai has also unmasked corruption dealings at the county and blamed Governor Sakaja for overseeing the ongoing loot.
He added the is he ready to table impeachment motion and shed more light to EACC or DCI detectives.
