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Conflict of interest: Auditor General flags tycoon Mary Wambui's fibre optic tenders
Mary Wambui Mungai.
In the 2024/2025 financial year alone, Nightigale Enterprises Ltd completed works worth Sh400 million as part of the Kenya Kwanza administration’s digital superhighway project.
Nightigale was one of 62 firms that bid for tenders for the laying of fibre optic cables across the country.
With the planned rollout of the digital superhighway project, which involved a 100,000-km fibre optic cable coverage across the country, the Communications Authority (CA) became a pivot in the Kenya Kwanza administration’s plans.
On December 2, 2022, businesswoman Mary Wambui Mungai was appointed to chair the CA Board. Three days later, Ms Mungai resigned as a director of Nightigale Enterprises.
Ms Mungai transferred 500 shares to her daughter, Evelyn Nyambura Mungai, who had returned to the firm’s shareholding structure a month earlier.
Ms Nyambura now had 700 shares, or 70 per cent of Nightigale Enterprises Ltd.
A week after those changes, the CA entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Information and Communication Technology Authority (ICTA) for the digital superhighway project.
Under the MoU, the CA would give Sh5 billion for the first phase of the digital superhighway project.
In February 2023, ICTA advertised tenders for backbone and metro.
Former Communications Authority (CA) Board Chairperson Mary Wambui Mungai.
Backbone is physical infrastructure, mostly fibre optic cables that move huge data over long distances. Metro is the network that distributes internet from fibre optic cables to the relevant areas. Those tenders attracted 62 bids.
ICTA also advertised tenders for public Wi-Fi, and attracted 75 bids.
The tenders were opened on March 28, 2023.
While Ms Mungai exited Nightigale in 2022, her daughter remained a director and shareholder of the company at the time ICTA advertised the tenders, when they were opened and when ICTA informed Nightigale of the intention to award it contracts, filings in a court petition by the Consumer Federation of Kenya show.
Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu has reported that on April 17, 2023 – two months after the tenders were advertised – the CA and ICTA entered into a technical cooperation agreement to facilitate actual implementation of the digital superhighway project.
Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu.
Just a week after the agreement, ICTA wrote to Nightigale Enterprises Ltd informing it that it was awarding it a Sh54.3 million tender, dubbed “Digital superhighway - Backbone & Metro”.
“You shall be required to sign the contract before the end of the tender validity period, but after the expiry of 14 days from the date of this letter,” ICTA CEO, Stanley Kamanguya, said.
Nightigale acknowledged the tender award in an April 27 letter to ICTA.
On April 29, 2023, Ms Mungai chaired CA Board meeting which ratified the December 2022 MoU with ICTA, and approved the technical cooperation agreement between the two agencies.
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The minutes also note that the board “approved a budget of Sh5 billion to be drawn from the Universal Service Fund (USF) to facilitate the implementation of projects under the TCA”.
As at this point, Ms Mungai’s daughter, Evelyn Nyambura, was still a director at Nightigale holding a 70 per cent stake, with court filings showing that she resigned from the position and transferred her shares on June 19, 2023, a week before the company signed the first contract.
“I have voluntarily resigned as a director and shareholder of Nightigale (E.A) Limited and I have transferred all my 700 shares to Ruth Waithira Kinyanjui, a director and shareholder of the company,” she said in a resignation letter dated June 19, 2023.
Nightigale signed the contract for the digital superhighway – Backbone & Metro on June 26, 2023.
The National Treasury and the ICT Ministry approved CA’s revised budget to accommodate the Sh5 billion digital superhighway projects in September 2023, about three months after Nightigale signed its first contract.
In her report for the year ending June 2025, Auditor-General Gathungu raised questions over conflict of interest in contracts awarded under the digital superhighway initiative, noting that companies linked to Ms Mungai and another CA Board member were awarded contracts unfairly.
President William Ruto revoked Ms Mungai’s appointment to the CA Board in August, 2025. The President then appointed her to chair the Athi Water Works Development Agency board.
President William Ruto.
Auditor General Gathungu, in her audit, found a direct link between Ms Mungai and another board member with companies that got contracts, indicating that they remained shareholders/directors by the time tendering for the contracts had started.
“Audit review of the bidders' company ownership document, CR 12 and resume of board members, revealed that two companies in which the Board Chairperson and a Board member of CA had controlling interest in, were awarded contracts by ICT Authority (delegated procurement authority) in the Digital Super Highway Project Funded by the USF,” she said.
During the year ending June 2025, Nightigale implemented contracts valued at Sh401.6 million while the unnamed board member’s company took Sh82.16 million, the public auditor revealed.
“Documents availed for audit review revealed that the said Board Members were either Managing Directors, or shareholders of the companies at the point of tender opening and evaluation on 28 February, 2023 and 28 March, 2023 respectively,” Ms Gathungu said.
She revealed that Ms Mungai and the other board member later resigned from their respective companies “after the companies were awarded contracts.”
Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu.
The Consumers Federation of Kenya (Cofek) filed its petition in 2024, challenging the award of the backbone & metro, and public Wi-Fi connectivity contracts to Nightigale, citing conflict of interest on the part of Ms Mungai.
“The financing of the project is sourced from USF, a fund which is managed by the CA. The Project is to be in two phases with the 1st phase apportioned a total of Sh5 billion and the 2nd Phase being apportioned a whopping total of Sh10 billion from the USF,” the lobby said in court.
Overall, the digital superhighway project targets installation of 100,000 km of fibre optic cables across the country, establishment of 25,000 public hotspots, 1,450 Digital Village Smart Hubs and Studios, and three data centres.
Cofek argued that despite CA delegating procurement of contracts under the digital superhighway to ICTA, it retained functions such as approval of budgets and paying contractors, thus it is directly involved.
This was reinforced by a letter by ICTA to Nightigale in August 2024, where it acknowledged that CA has been responsible for payment of contractors under the digital superhighway project.
Cofek also noted that tender documents stated that “public employees and their close relatives (spouses, children, brothers, sisters and uncles and aunts) are not eligible to participate in the tenders.”
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“Despite this clear, express and unambiguous provisions, as supplemented by constitutional and statutory dictates, Ms Mungai, CA and ICTA caused the award of the tender to among others, entities which have a direct link to the Chairperson of CA,” Cofek said.
The case is still before the High Court.
In court filings last year, CA Director-General David Mugonyi acknowledged that Ms Mungai participated in the board meeting where approvals for digital superhighway projects were granted.
Mr Mugonyi, however, claimed in court that Ms Mungai and her daughter were not directors of Nightigale as at April 2023.
Mr Mugonyi said that the Companies Registry wrote to him in July 2024, stating that Ms Mungai’s daughter, Evelyn Nyambura, was a director and a shareholder of the company until June 2023.
The Business Registration Service’ court filings show that Ms Mungai exited the company on December 5, 2022, while her daughter, Ms Nyambura, resigned on June 19, 2023.
Following concerns over conflict of interest in the contracts under the digital superhighway project, Nightigale CEO Edward Njenga Muniu wrote to ICTA in August 2024, also confirming that “Mary Mungai resigned from the company on December 5, 2022, while Evelyn Nyambura resigned on June 19, 2023.”
When sought for comment last week, Mr Mugonyi declined to respond to questions, noting that “This matter is active in the courts of law. I am constrained by the sub judice rule, and therefore I cannot canvass it outside that realm.”
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