The High Court has temporarily suspended an order compelling the Nairobi county government to pay a law firm Sh847 million as legal fees.
Justice Pauline Nyamweya suspended the payment owed to Samson Masaba Munikah T/A Munikah & Advocates, which won a case against City Hall in February.
"There be stay of the execution of orders issued on February, 2019 for 10 days pending hearing of the said notice of motion inter-parte on April 9, 2019," Nyamweya ordered.
The court also suspended payment of 9,756,512.96 arising from interest on the amount, which had accrued since July 29, 2016.
Justice John Mativo on February 25 issued an order directing the county government to pay the law firm, which acted for the defunct City Council of Nairobi in a 2003 case.
The Nairobi county government aggrieved by the court decision filed sought suspension of the ruling.
Through lawyer Thomas Letangule, the county said it discovered there was fraud and collusion to inflate legal fee through double taxation of costs.
He further said the law firm did not disclose to the court that another taxation had been done earlier over the same matter and they were paid Sh60,712,373.
“A perusal of the records now reveals that Samson Masaba Munikah T/A Munikah & Advocates has been paid in excess of the taxed amount, having received Sh65,000,000 from Nairobi County," the documents read.
Letangule said despite the payment, the law firm obtained orders from court based on a second certificate of taxation that was wrongly issued out of fraud and collusion in the same matter.
"The Nairobi City County has now moved to court for orders to set aside the subject certificate of taxation dated August 7, 2012 for Sh498,757,315 which was obtained by application of wrong principles and manifest fraud hence the urgency of this application to avert a loss of huge amounts of public money," the county says.
