Meru County Secretary Kiambi Atheru spent the night in remand on Tuesday as old pending bills of over Sh500 million haunt the current administration.
Mr Atheru and the Finance Chief Officer Charles Mwenda were arraigned on Tuesday over the bills owed to law firms and a French hotelier who was kicked out of Meru National Park by the county government.
Mr Atheru and Mr Mwenda first appeared before Justice Heston Nyaga in a suit pitting Tom Ojienda & Associates and the county government over Sh74 million that has not been paid since the tenure of the first governor, Peter Munya.
Justice Nyaga released Mr Mwenda on a personal bond of Sh100,000 and set the matter for mention on February 19, 2025.
In the second suit, Mr Atheru was remanded until yesterday and was to appear in court with the finance executive over money owed to another law firm.
“You need to have your own attorney to minimise the budget on lawyers. You must work within your means,” he said.
In July, the Law Society of Kenya, Meru branch, protested against what it termed as the county’s skewed payment of pending bills for legal services.
Earlier in the year, the county assembly blamed the high pending bills on overreliance on contracted legal services and urged the governor to hire a county attorney.
While appearing before the Senate Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in July, Governor Kawira Mwangaza was put to task on why her administration had no county attorney.
“We cannot have a county executive committee member acting as the county attorney. That encroachment into the law is not acceptable,” PAC Chairman Moses Kajwang’ warned.
Speaking to journalists after the court session, County Executive Committee Member for Finance Ibrahim Mutwiri blamed their predicament on a decision by the county assembly to revise the 2024/2025 budget.
“The executive had allocated Sh74 million for clearing Tom Ojienda’s pending bills but the county assembly slashed the budget. Only Sh10 million was allocated and paid. We had allocated enough money to pay law firms,” Mr Mutwiri said.
The county officials have been dodging police officers seeking to execute warrants of arrest for contempt of court over Sh600 million owed to Leopard Rock Mico Limited — the owner of Leopard Rock Lodge.
On Monday, the two officials were to appear in court over pending bills running to more than Sh600 million owed to Leopard Rock Mico Limited.
The county has since paid Sh150 million to Leopard Rock Mico Limited but is yet to complete payment as directed by the court.
In December last year, the Finance executive was sentenced to a three-month imprisonment for contempt of court over non-payment of the money owed to the hotelier.
The court had on June 27, 2022 ordered Meru County to pay Leopard Rock Mico Limited Sh445 Million within 30 days. The amount has continued to accrue interest.
This is after an arbitrator had in 2019 found the Meru government liable for illegally evicting the company from its prime hotel facility inside the Meru National Park.
After the county government failed to show commitment to honour the arbitral award, hotelier Michael Dechauffour moved to court seeking orders to compel the Meru government to settle the compensation.
On August 31, 2022, he sought committal of the CEC Finance to jail for contempt of court and after hearing the case, the court found the official guilty of contempt.
