The fraudulent payments, allegedly engineered by senior finance officials, exploited weaknesses in the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Database (IPPD), channelling funds into illicit bank accounts.
The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has launched an investigation implicating two senior county officers and a private IT firm contracted to manage payroll systems. A separate audit paints an even bleaker picture: among the county’s 11,000 staff, 2,000 were found to be on the payroll despite never having worked for the county, with KSh 839.9 million in unexplained compensation for the 2023/2024 financial year alone.
Governor Johnson Sakaja, under mounting pressure, has since suspended four officials and ordered a forensic audit to trace the stolen funds. “We will not tolerate theft of public resources,” he pledged. Critics, however, argue that his administration acted too slowly, raising questions about the effectiveness of financial oversight at City Hall.
This scandal exposes chronic failings in county financial management, where weak controls have allowed large-scale fraud to flourish unchecked. Nairobi residents, already contending with erratic waste collection, understaffed health facilities, and crumbling infrastructure, are demanding justice.
The loss of KSh 2.3 billion is not merely a budgetary gap; it represents stolen opportunities: better-equipped hospitals, repaired roads, and improved public services that citizens will now go without.
Just as the 9th Devolution Conference opens in Homa Bay, this scandal should serve as a national wake-up call: without ironclad transparency and digitised payroll verification systems, counties will remain fertile ground for theft, impunity, and betrayal of public trust.
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