• Kidero says payment to the lawyer was for the lawful sale of his Lexus.
• The court ordered that the lawyer be paid Sh68 million in 2011 before Kidero became Nairobi governor.
Besieged ex-Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero has denied improperly receiving Sh14 million in a Sh68 million corruption case.
On Monday Kidero was charged alongside 15 others with bribery and abuse of office after the EACC concluded that they had colluded to defraud Nairobi County of Sh68 million.
Kidero, Nairobi governor from 2013 to 2017, said the Sh14 million that he received from lawyer Stephen Kariuki Mburu was for the sale of his high-end Toyota Lexus vehicle.
Mburu died mysteriously in a guest house in Oloitokitok on July 27, 2018.
According to the EACC, on January 7, 2014, Nairobi County made suspicious payments amounting to Sh58 million to Mburu, through his law firm Wachira Mburu Mwangi and Company Advocates.
However, Kidero says that this payment to the lawyer was the result of a court order made in 2011 before he became governor.
Mburu was contracted in 2011 to defend Nairobi City council against a double claim of land allocation worth Sh3.3 billion.
“The case was dismissed and a bill of costs was raised of Sh131 million which the then city council disputed as exorbitant,” Kidero argues.
Mburu then proceeded to court for taxation and the judge ruled that Sh29.8 million be paid as instruction fees and Sh29.3 million as party costs. An earlier payment of Sh10 million in 2011 raised the total to Sh68 million.
“So the two payments were made subject to a court order, a fact that the EACC and DPP are privy to but ignored as they pursue their mission of malice, extortion and persecution against my person,” he said.
Kidero was responding to a front-page story in the New Vision on Monday about how the Sh68 million was shared out by Mburu.
After receiving the money, Mburu wired Sh15 million to Cups Limited, a company co-owned by Kidero's former Chief of Staff George Wainana and his son John Ngari Wainana.
Wainaina only retained Sh1 million and sent the remaining Sh14 million to Kidero.
“The lawyer then made several transactions, including giving his wife Sh1 million and purchasing land in Ruai from Cups Ltd who then bought my Toyota Lexus 4.7 car for Sh14 million,” Kidero said.
The matter dates back in 1996 when Nairobi city council allocated Kyavee Holdings Limited a 10-year lease for a parcel of land measuring 1,720 acres.
Later, Nairobi council sold the property again to a third party who immediately developed it.
Kyavee went to court in 2010 demanding Sh3.15 billion in damages and City Hall hired Mburu’s firm to defend it.
After Mburu successfully defended the case, he sent Nairobi city council a fee note of Sh131 but this was revised to Sh68.7 million in court.
Kidero wondered why Nyakach MP Oduor Aduma’s name was removed from the final charge sheet yet he approved the original payment of Sh10 million to Mburu’s firm in 2011 when he was Nairobi council’s legal director.