Judiciary in a spot over huge spending on unused premises

The Judiciary has been faulted for leasing premises and failing to make use of them even after spending millions of shillings in taxpayers' money.

Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday toured the Supreme Court, Elgon Place and the Chief Justice's official residence on a fact-finding mission, following questions raised in an audit report released by the Auditor General.

The House team specifically expressed concern over the purchase of the Sh310 million official residence for the CJ that remains unoccupied, purchase of a containerised data centre and leasing of Elgon Place that was supposed to host appellate judges.

Committee chair Ababu Namwamba accused the Judiciary Tender Committee (JTC) of failing to visit, survey and evaluate the CJ's premises based in Nairobi's Runda estate before sealing the transaction.

"The transaction for the CJ's property is subject to audit queries raised by the Auditor General. Among the queries with respect to this property is that the Judiciary paid Sh310 million without an authentic evaluation of the property. It is on record that the JTC did not physically visit and evaluate this property before closure of the transaction," said Mr Namwamba.

The Budalang'i MP said they were not aware the property was undergoing renovation, noting that the process could cost the institution more money.

"Besides the Sh310 million, the taxpayer will spend even more on renovation. Those are some of the issues to be considered by the committee. We will confirm the exact figure on renovations from the Office of the Chief Registrar because it seems the renovations were done under the camouflage of security installations," he said.

The team equally criticised failure by Court of Appeal judges to occupy Elgon Place over radiation fears from telecommunication masts adjacent to the building, even after rent amounting to Sh70 million was paid.

Namwamba, after inspecting the building together with committee members, said the quality of work was impressive but PAC would commission a study to confirm the authenticity of radiation fears.

"We have taken note that there are people who occupy working space within this area. If this building was to be put to use then our initial impression is this could raise the general standards for court houses in the country," he said.

The team noted that even though 80 per cent had been paid for the Sh106 million containerised data centre, it remained unused.

PAC will table its final report before the House towards the end of the month.