Nairobi County’s Suppliers to Seek State Intervention for Overdue Payments

A section of suppliers and contractors whose payments have never been done despite having completed their work are planning to make an official complaint to treasury.

The suppliers are accusing Governor Johnson Sakaja led administration of paying specific suppliers, some whom they claim have no proof of the work done.

The group of suppliers is mostly made of business men who are owed small amounts of money  by City Hall not exceeding Sh 3 million.

They claim City Hall is only interested in paying those who are able to dish out kickbacks in advance or those who have a working relationship either with the governor or other senior officials in the finance department.

A supplier who has been chasing his payments for over three years now without success said they will be holding meeting on Tuesday after the Easter holiday before making an official communication to treasury and other relevant agencies like the office of Controller of Budget, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission ( EACC) and the Director of Criminal Investigations ( DCI).

“Our businesses have collapsed and when you hear that people have been paid and no one wants to help you it really hurts. We will meet and agree on the way forward,” the supplier who deals with office stationery said

Read also: Controller of Budget’s stern warning to City Hall and County Treasury

Some of the companies suppliers wants investigated includes, Amikall, Fairbanks, Milbo lakes enterprises, Becal company, Larsen investment company, Tweem Limited among other companies.

The supplier accused Sakaja on clawing back on his promise to support small businesses to help create jobs.

“When we close business it means we are firing people and jobs are getting lost yet the county owes us money that can inject some hope and give us the confidence to approach banks,” he added.

Another supplier hit at the county for always complaining of delayed disbursement of funds yet it received all funds owed to it from treasury for the 2022/2023 financial year.

” Whatever I did was budgeted for and as far as I am concerned treasury released all money for the specific financial year yet I have been thrown into the pending bills.We now know that this issue of pending bills is always deliberate,” she said.

The suppliers claim the county is focused more on paying law firms, garbage collection firms owned by political and business heavyweights as well as senior officers at the county and the assembly.

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” I was told by someone to try and seek help from a senior snd long serving MCA who then refered me again to the finance department only to learn they wanted me to do some prior payment of kickbacks,” a young supplier said adding that he has so far spent Sh 200,000 trying to chase payment of Sh 1.2 million

They further added that they are also considering to stage a demonstration to EACC and statehouse to ask President Ruto to intervene.

Some of them want some county officials to step aside over corruption allegations.

The officers they want to step aside to pave way for investigations and further enable payments to legit firms include Charles Kerich county executive member finance and economic planning, Asha Abdi the Chief Finance Officer, Richard Mogoko head of procurement and senior officials at the procurement department.

Others are Green Nairobi County Executive Ibrahim Auma, director environment John Malawi, and several accountants.

A fearless employee early this year had written letters to DCI and EACC asking them to investigate those officers for corruption allegations and alleged diversion of funds to pay some companies that they’re associated with.

Some of the suppliers also said they could jointly sue the county if the matter is not solved.