Nairobi City County government’s planned payment of a staggering Sh1.4 billion to law firms has raised eyebrows. This is part of the Sh2.1 billion the county government sought from the National Treasury before the end of the 2022/23 financial year to pay the companies for legal services.
Controller of Budget (CoB) Margaret Nyakang’o has flagged this payment request, citing lack of timelines and details. Her office could, therefore, not reconcile these with the pending bills report that had already been submitted to her office.
The hefty amount involved calls for a thorough investigation. As a custodian of public funds, the CoB wants the city county administration to provide the details of the 19 law firms and the status of each of the cases handled and the judgments handed down by the courts.
She is also asking for invoices. If these are genuine bills, they should be processed and paid. However, those that raise suspicion must be thoroughly scrutinised to ensure that City Hall pays only certified bills.
Nairobi and the other 46 counties owe suppliers nearly Sh160 billion in pending bills. While some are genuine, a substantial amount is either fake or hugely inflated. Indeed, they are a manifestation of the endemic corruption in the counties.
This suspect payment plan follows Governor Johnson Sakaja’s appointment of a special committee to review a total Sh21 billion in outstanding legal service bills. Some 300 law firms are demanding the money and one wonders what all these could have been doing. Could City Hall have become a cash cow for crooked advocates?
The CoB’s intervention provides an opportunity to scrutinise and reveal the identities of the intended beneficiaries and which cases they actually handled for the county. The possibility of graft cannot be ruled out, hence the need to establish that the planned payments are, indeed, above board.
