How City Hall Finance Department is Allegedly Covering Corruption Allegations

Nairobi’s Finance department has perfected the art of scheming fraudulent schemes of maneuvering her way through the procurement system to siphon public funds.

The finance department, who is an agent of Governor Johnson Sakaja‘s looting plan has now devised ways of influencing reshuffle and transfer of county officers in order to protect her corrupt practices.

She has managed to influence demotion and promotion of officers in departments she has financial interests in at the county.

The department is in the center of the November 7th letter by the Public Service board over assignment of duties to officers allegedly working outside their duties.

“The Board has noted with concern a trend by sector heads of assigning duties to officers outside their appointed substantive positions. E.g. drivers, accountants, clerical officers, personal secretaries etc. Without due process of transfer and re-designation,”

The letter from Chairman County Public Service Board Thomas Kasoa further reads.

“Any officer performing duties outside their designated position should revert to their substantive position immediately. Where the services being offered by the officers are critical, then the officers should be advised to seek for re-designation through the laid down procedures,”

The letter indicates that the board shall not be held liable for any liability arising from officers performing duties outside their substantive positions.

Asha has been subject to numerous investigative operations on the escalating corruption levels at City Hall.

There have been reports that the Government and Governor Sakaja are protecting her 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 who freed on November 29th,2023 was a tactical decoy to protect other senior officers from being arrested.

The finance department and the Chief officer have been at the center of frivolous payments at the county.

Authorities are still following up on a complaint letter from Chief Officer Disaster Management and Coordination Bramuel Simiyu.

The letter dated 10/11/2023 is titled; “Unauthorized Commitments and Transactions on IFMIS for the disaster management and coordination sector.”

According to Bramuel, a series of irregular and unauthorized commitments and transactions were made on the IFMIS platform affecting the sector’s budget.

The payments made were for ghost suppliers prompting him to write to the Finance department that authorized payments on the IFMIS platform.

Chief Officers for various sectors are always the first approvers for any payments to be made.

“ It has come to my attention that there have been and there continues to be number of irregular and/or unauthorized commitments and transactions made on the IFMIS platform that affects the sector budget,” the letter reads in its opening paragraph.

It further reads: “ As the sector’s Accounting Officer and the First Approver on the IFMIS system, these commitments done without my knowledge and approval have the potential effect of affecting our ability to deliver on the programs we have committed to in our ADP, lead to audit queries and/or contribute to potential loss of public funds.”

Further details from the letter indicate that the commitments were made even before the sector procurement plan for the year 2023/2024 had been approved and uploaded onto the IFMIS platform as required by the PFM Act.

As case in point as per the letter is a commitment of Ksh,15,658,500 invoiced from the Fire Fighting and Rescue Development Expenditure( Vote Head 0018/3111299-00001001-0726035310-53100001).

This was drawn from a vote Ksh.120 million budgeted for the construction of the Gikomba and Kangemi Fire Stations.

Other fraudulent transactions as per the letter  include unauthorized invoicing using Emergency Fund for firms that have no known engagement with the sector.

Some of the payments mentioned include Ksh 2million paid to Charleka Enterprises and Ksh 900,000 paid to Nichotech Enterprises.

“Given the foregoing, I wish to request  for your intervention to establish how and under what circumstances these approvals are being done and if possible this be reversed,” Bramuel added

Apart from County Executive committee member for finance Charles Kerich, others being trailed secretly by detectives are some accountants and a few procurement officers.

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, Denis Muia who works at the Workplan department at finance, Mary Maina who has grown to be a big schemer along City Hall corridors and one of the girlfriends to former county secretary Musumba.

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.

Some MCAs are also in the process of tabling detailed content at the assembly on how recruitment was done and how some executive pocketed some money in order to favor some county staff.

“It is so shocking people don’t have any experience on matters budget but since it is a looting spree that what they’re doing. We won’t allow that. “ he added

Some accountants are on police radar for invoicing environment dealings that are supposed to be paid at CoB.

The companies according to documents in our possession are for key government individuals and some politicians.