City Hall queried over Sh160m pay to garbage firms

City Hall is once again on the spot after it emerged that environment department officers cannot account for more than Sh160 million paid to contracted garbage collectors.

This comes after it was revealed that the county government irregularly paid a total of Sh162 million to only two out of the 11 companies contracted to collect garbage at the capital city.

The executive failed to submit payment vouchers made to the companies, the list of the 11 companies and supporting contractual documents.

The revelations came during a county assembly Public Accounts Committee sitting on Tuesday evening investigating the payment of Sh202,996,053 to the 11 firms.

The Mabatini MCA Wilfred Odalo-led committee had summoned acting Environment chief officer Mohammed Abdi and director Isaac Muraya to respond to queries in Auditor General’s report on the expenditure for garbage collection in the financial year of 2017/18.

This is after the report revealed that City Hall paid two firms Sh162,092,407 for collecting garbage in areas they had not been pre-qualified for.

“Although it has been explained that the firms opted to collect garbage from some zones due to high rates of payment, the option taken contravened their individual contracts resulting in denial of service to other zones. Consequently, the garbage collection contracts were irregular and the residents may not have received the services contracted,” reads the report.

n March this year, former Environment executive Larry Wambua responding to a request by MCA Millicent Jagero on firms contracted to collect garbage by City Hall, 14 names were given and Puka Investment was not one of them.

But Mr Muraya said he received a letter on April 3, 2018 requesting more contractors to help clear waste in Starehe sub-county leading to the allocation of Puka Investment to the areas on June 1, 2017.

The firms contracted to collect garbage in Nairobi include Kange Construction, Yiro Enterprises, Creative Consolidated System, J W Mwangi, Tema Home Care, Nyawa Agencies, Felixilease Ltd, Vineyard Holdings, Hardi Enterprises, Jackoy Enterprises, Purlexis Enterprises, Acacia Equipment, Yiro Enterprise and Commodity Waste Management.