Plan to pay law firms Sh2bn shines spotlight on City Hall
Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja
A controversial plan by Nairobi City County to pay 15 law firms Sh2.1 billion in pending bills for legal services has once again put the governor Johnson Sakaja-led administration on the spot with concerns over the modality used to identify the law firms, prioritising them over other service providers who are equally owed.
The controversial plan comes after Mr Sakaja appointed a special committee in January to review the Sh2.1 billion legal services pending bills and provide a report within four months that lapsed in May. The mandate of the committee was, however, extended by four months.
The 14-member committee chaired by Kamotho Waiganjo and whose members include Law Society of Kenya president Eric Theuri was to inquire into the 300 law firms claiming Sh21 billion from the county.
Although the committee is yet to make its final report public, a lawsuit filed at the High Court by Rodney Wesonga & Mwangi Ngatia Advocates against the Nairobi County accuses City Hall of hastily planning to make the payment without revealing the criteria used to identify the law firms.
“The applicant has since learnt that the National Treasury is in the process of disbursing some funds to the Nairobi County government for purposes of sorting pending bills and the applicant has further learnt that the first respondent has approved to pay around Sh2 billion to less than 15 law firms. It is not clear which modality the county used to settle on paying the said 15 law firms in clear discrimination of the applicant firm and other firms that have equally provided legal services to the Nairobi County government,” read part of the suit.
The aggrieved law firms in the court documents have said City Hall’s decision to pay the law firms is discriminatory as the companies are “politically-connected”.
They also told the court that the county has ignored several written requests to explain the criteria used to identify the law firms.
“The applicant is apprehensive that the respondent is carrying out and will pay out legal fees to “politically connected” law firms, will discriminate against it, having cherry-picked on the firms to be paid without distributing the available budgeted money equitably across most of the firms that have pending bills,” read the suit.
The matter irked the city MCAs who are expected to open an inquiry into the payment through the assembly’s Justice and Legal Affairs Committee led by Mugumu-Ini MCA Jared Akama.
This follows a request by Kileleshwa MCA Robert Alai who had questioned the modalities of the payment and a copy of the report by the special committee.
The payment of legal fees has been a pain in the neck of previous administrations at City Hall.
Nairobi County owes contractors and suppliers more than Sh100 billion in pending bills.
The Sakaja-led administration has insisted that they would clear the pending bills.
However, questions abound about why City Hall prioritised the payment to the legal firms while other bills are long overdue.
A source, who spoke to Nation on condition of anonymity on the planned payment, expressed “surprise” concerning the amount quoted in the court documents.
“We did not know that it was such a huge amount. We were only informed about a planned payment of a different amount. We were surprised when we saw the court documents saying it was Sh2.1 billion,” said the source.
