Alai Rubbishes Sakaja’s Thanksgiving, Claims City Hall now Worse, Lauds Sonko’s Tenure

Kileleshwa MCA Robert Alai has hit out at Governor Johnson Sakaja for presiding over what he terms as unprecedented massive corruption and impunity at City Hall.

The MCA cum blogger has vehemently rubbished Sakaja’s thanksgiving ceremony held on Sunday 26th November, 2023, terming the event as a platform by the governor to try and hoodwink city residents against the escalating level of corruption and alleged incompetencies exhibited by some of his officers.

He criticized speaker Ken Ngondi, majority Leader Peter Imwatok speaker and minority leader Peter Kiragu for going to bed with the governor even as activities at City Hall point to excessive looting.

Sakaja’s thanksgiving ceremony was also attended by Makadara MP George Aladwa, nominated senator Karen Nyamu and several other elected leaders in Nairobi.

According to Alai who shared a live video on his social media accounts,the event turned into a forum of happing praises to Sakaja even as the county’s revenue collection system remains shrouded in secrecy.

“Majority leader is heaping praise to the governor when he knows the governor is doing nothing but as long as they get deals to buy big cars they don’t care,” Alai fumed.

Alai reiterated that Governor Sakaja has no full control of the revenue collection system and that the national government through the National Intelligence Service was allegedly in charge.

“The fact that the governor claims the NIS is collecting revenue is shameless. The governor does not even know who is collecting revenue,” Alai ranted.

He claimed that various departments at the county do not even have printing papes,operations at Pumwani Hospital are  horrible and further laughed off the governor’s decision to change Umoja Level II hospital into  a Mama Lucy Hospital Annex.

Alai added that Sakaja’s incompetency makes him worse than former governor Mike Sonko.

“I have never seen such an incompetent guy. Sonko is better a million times,”

He called out MCAs who are praising governor Sakaja when even their salaries have not been released.

Interestingly,it’s just last week when the county assembly’s  ad hoc committee that was established in September 2023 to look into the Revenue Collection System in Nairobi announced its going to begin its work on November 28,2023.

The  ad hoc committee had already declared the current status of revenue as below par and would duel more on establishing possible revenue diversion in its sessions.

Critics of the ad hoc committee have raised concerns given the fact that it’s being chaired by majority leader Peter Imwatok Jateso who appeared to be in full praise of the governor on Sunday.

Imwatok had on Friday told journalists that the assembly is not impressed with the state of revenue collection.

He criticized the governor for praising the collection of Sh10 billion in the last financial year, stating that the county should be collecting more than Sh 18billion as of now.

“We are also assuming that there is a problem with the system collection as Nairobians have complained every now and then. There is a downtown in the system. It is not understandable why MPesa can work while they are using the same IP address,” Mr Imwatok said.

Several county officials have been on the radar of investigative agencies over corruption dealings.

Apart from County Executive committee member for finance Charles Kerich, others being trailed secretly by detectives include Daniel Nguru commonly known as Tortoise, Martha Wambugu the deputy County Chief Finance Officer among others, who have allegedly supervised fake invoicing and other dealings.

Others on police radder and have bought themselves high end cars includes Vivian Mavua, Beth Muthoni, who has adopted cunning tricks to balance the books, Brian Oyando (former accountant trade), Ambrose Musau, Mary Maina who has grown to be a big schemer along City Hall corridors.

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. It can further be proved that the internal auditors at the county have been compromised to give positive reports.

Detectives are also seeking to unmask a new trend where interns are being used by seasoned staff to loot millions of taxpayer’s money as well as take bribes from unsuspecting contractors and suppliers.

This is after it was established that interns at the finance department are strategically scouted and recruited to aid senior officers in looting.

The interns, as per insider revelations, are given passwords belonging to retirees to demand bribes going up to Ksh 500,000 for invoicing.

This comes against the backdrop of reports that some senior people in the Kenya Kwanza government are protecting senior officers at City Hall from possible arrests over corruption related activities.

A number of MCAs who spoke on request of anonymity confided that the recent arrest of their former South C colleague Osman Khalif was a tactical decoy to protect other senior officers from being arrested.

Osman, who is also the Nairobi Liaison officer, was abducted  by people believed to be DCI officers.

His abduction opened the lid on a serious cartel believed to be enjoying a lot of state protection.

Some of the MCAs purtubbed with the arrest of Osman questioned why some senior county officials are walking scot free yet they have been grilled and wrote statements at DCI and found culpable of serious corruption offenses.

A senior detective from asset recovery who sought anonymity said they are trailing their assets closely and soon a freeze order will be issued.

“Cityhall is like kano in Nigeria or Noida in India. The city is for how can junior officers be driving posh cars and bought apartments. Are they much blessed by God that others. Those are corruption dealings and we will unmask everything soon and not later.” He added.