City Hall suppliers to wait longer for payments, courtesy of EACC
Suppliers and contractors owed billions of shillings by the Nairobi County government will have to wait longer to receive their payments.
This comes after Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) put a halt on the payments in order to determine the authenticity of some of the payments that have been made.
In a letter addressed to National Treasury PS Julius Muia, EACC Chief Executive Officer Twalib Mbarak asked the PS to hold all payments until the commission and other state agencies verify the planned payments are genuine.
The EACC boss said that the EACC received credible information that the Nairobi County government intended to make payments to suppliers which are suspected to be fraudulent.
“Some of the beneficiaries are suspected not to have offered services to the County Government. There are also allegations of conflict of interest,” read in part the letter dated January 30, 2020 signed by Mbarak.
The letter is copied to acting Nairobi County Secretary Leboo Morintat and Central Bank of Kenya governor Patrick Njoroge.
Two weeks ago, the anti graft agency summoned Morintat to Integrity Centre to avail crucial documents to its investigators after it launched a probe into the payment of the pending bills.
Morintat was required to avail a list of all the pending bills or debts to suppliers and contractors having the name of companies, services rendered or goods supplied, period and amounts.
The outstanding bills for all payments made between December 1, 2019 and January 13, 2020 were to be verified by the office of the Auditor General.
“The EACC is conducting investigations into the above subject matter. To facilitate this investigation, you are required to avail the following documents. Kindly note you are required to provide aforesaid documents and information on or before Thursday, January 16, 2020…,” said the January 13, 2020 letter signed by Mabarak.
Last week, chaos and drama rocked Nairobi Finance office after a group of MCAs and goons stormed the office to evict former Finance Executive Pauline Kahiga.
At the centre of the melee was Sh1.4 billion released by the National Treasury early this month to settle pending bills at the county government.
Minority Whip Peter Imwatok claimed that Kahiga’s woes started when she allegedly refused to pay lawyers and other suppliers who are not part of the pending bills.
He said Kahiga’s firm stance was in line with instructions from the Treasury that preference be given to the youth, women, people with disabilities and small scale traders who did business with City Hall and have legible pending bills.