Stop theft of taxes, county officers told

Nairobi, Kenya - County attorneys have been urged to safeguard public interest especially by effectively defending counties in legal suits to protect taxpayers money.

 

Speaking during an ongoing training for 47 county legal officers at the School of Government in Nairobi yesterday, Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero said legal officers under the defunct municipal and town councils cost the public billions in losses as they conspired to lose cases.

Citing Nairobi's case, Dr Kidero said with 12 lawyers, the then Nairobi City Council failed to win any case.

"When you do your work, please remember it is public money we are spending, which would otherwise have been used for development. We inherited debts of Sh42 billion from the defunct City Council of Nairobi and out of this, Sh4 billion was legal fees while we had 1,800 cases pending in court," he said.

"Lawyers working for the councils were working against the same employer and undermining the councils by colluding with the prosecution to influence the outcome of such cases in favour of the prosecution instead of the councils," he added.

The legal officers were also asked to respect the Constitution and draft simple but high quality bills that will be easier to interpret.

The training is set to equip the lawyers on the best ways to draft bills and harmonise them to national and international legal standards. The training aims at sharpening their legislative drafting skills.

Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru said together with the Kenya Law Reform Commission, her ministry had disseminated model laws to all 47 county governments.

Ms Waiguru said the model laws are meant to guide county governments in the process of developing county legislation.

Transition Authority Chairman Kinuthia Wamwangi said they organised the training as required under the Government Act 2012 to assess the capacity needs of both the national and county governments.