City Hall paid two firms Sh162m in doubtful deals for garbage collection

The county Environment department irregularly paid Sh162 million to garbage collection companies, the devolved unit's Public Accounts Committee found on Tuesday.

The PAC, during a meeting with acting Environment chief officer Mohammed  Abdi and Environment director Isaac Muraya, was told that the money was paid two of the 11  companies.

The Auditor General's report for the financial year of 2017/2018 shows that Sh202,996,053 was spent on garbage collection. Only Sh40 million was regularly paid.

Committee members wanted to be shown the list of the companies contracted to collect garbage.

Nominated MCA Sylvia Museiya said the Environment department should come clean on the contracted companies.

"This is a big scandal. The Environment department colluded to give two unknown companies Sh162 million," she said.

Another nominated MCA, June Ndegwa, demanded to be shown the names of the companies.

"We need the list of the companies to know which are unable to do their job in their zones and whether it was by design or default," Museiya said.

The Auditor General's report indicated that garbage in non-contracted zones was irregularly collected. The 11 companies collected 84,317 tonnes of garbage.

"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 a denial of services to other zones," according to the report.

"Consequently, the garbage collection contracts were irregular and the residents may not have received the services contracted for." 

The Wilfred Odalo-led committee found it suspicious that the executive failed to submit payment vouchers made to the companies, the list of the 11 companies and their contractual documents.

Muraya said payment vouchers were the responsibility of the procurement department and the Finance chief officer should present them to the committee.

"I cannot talk on vouchers because it is not within my mandate. We submitted our papers to the procurement office under the Finance department."

Karen MCA David Mberia said, "The Finance department is letting us down. We are an evidence-based committee and the payment vouchers should be tabled. How do we proceed without the vouchers?" he asked.

Muraya said that his office only allocated contracted garbage collectors authorised zones.

"Upon noticing the unusual accumulation of waste and that the contractor is unable to handle the waste, the supervisor of a given operation zone requests the director of Environment to consider assigning one or more of the performing contractors to temporarily collect waste in that zone." 

Muraya said he received a letter from Grace Ojiayo requesting for contractors to clear waste in Starehe. Garbage had accumulated in Muthurwa, Wakulima market, Daidai Road, Ziwani and Country Bus Station.

On June 1, 2017, he allocated Puka Investment company to collect garbage as requested by Ojiayo.

Puka was also to work in Kariokor market, Riverside, Ring Road, Pumwani and Aoko Road.

Kware MCA Rose Kulla demanded the list of the contracted companies ."If they did the advert for the said companies on the dailies, why is it becoming very difficult for them to submit the list of the 11 companies? These are just games being played," she said.

The Auditor General's report for 2016/2017, showed that Puka was paid Sh17.1 million on August 24, 2016, for collection of garbage from the CBD.

The same report said the Environment department paid more than Sh184 million to garbage firms outside their designated zones.

In March this year, former Environment executive Larry Wambua said 14 companies were contracted by City Hall to collect garbage in Nairobi. She was responding to a question by ward rep Millicent Jagero.

The companies are Felixilease Ltd, Vineyard Holdings, Hardi Enterprises, Jackoy Enterprises, Purlexis Enterprises, Acacia Equipment, Yiro Enterprise and Commodity Waste Management. The others are Kange Construction, Yiro Enterprises, Creative Consolidated System, J W Mwangi, Tema Home Care and Nyawa Agencies.

'The department clearly have their preferred companies that is why some are being allocated to collect garbage from non contracted zones,'she said .

'The documents have been choreographed and it is in design that only certain contracts have been revealed while some have been left out,' she added.

PAC chairman Wilfred odalo adjourned the committee and requested the executive to provide all essential documents needed before the committee.

Muraya assured the committee that in the next sitting which is today ( Thursday ) the list of companies will be available.