MCAs probe City Hall’s Sh800m legal payout

Karen Ward MCA David Mberia. He wondered how the county made payments without the law firms raising fee notes as stipulated by law. [File, Standard]

A watchdog committee is investigating the alleged irregular payment of Sh795.9 million by City Hall to law firms in the 2018-19 financial year.

The County Assembly Legal and Justice Committee is looking into how the payments to 48 firms were made without the requisite fee notes being raised, and the criteria used to arrive at the amounts to be paid to each firm.

The Moses Ogeto-led committee is also investigating into the alleged collusion between the county’s legal department and the law firms to siphon money from the county coffers.

Nairobi County’s senior legal counsel Evans Mugire last week appeared before the committee, where he disclosed that 335 cases had been handled by City Hall in the 2018-19 year.

The committee heard that only 12 cases were won with a majority lost or withdrawn. Only 48 law firms have been paid.

Karen MCA David Mberia pressed Mugire to explain why the county had been making payments without the law firms raising fee notes as stipulated by law. Documents tabled before the committee indicate that only eight law firms out of the 48 raised a fee note before payment.

He was concerned that according to evidence presented to the committee, Munikah and Company Advocates was paid Sh250,000,000 without having raised a fee note.

“How do you pay a law firm without them raising a fee note? What will you be making the payment against? This committee needs to know what these other 40 law firms were paid for,” stated Mberia.

Nominated MCA Silvia Museiya alleged a possible collusion between the county’s legal department and the law firms to siphon money from the county coffers, saying that in the year under review, no case was handled by the county lawyers since the county opted to outsource legal services.

She also questioned why only Sh795.6 million had been paid to the firms despite an allocation of Sh2.5 billion for the clearance of pending legal bills in the year under review, through a supplementary budget.

“It seems like some people go to court, come to you for representation and once they draw a legal fee note they withdraw and seek for payment. There seems to be a collusion between the legal department and litigants to defraud the county,” said Museiya. 

The first time MCA further queried the criteria used to award cases to the external legal firms, citing bias in the process.

Mr Mugire, however, defended the payments, saying they made them based on the pending bills list presented to the department. He also explained that the county’s move to outsource legal services was because during the 2018-19 year, City Hall had no internal lawyers.

He also said all the payments were supported by the fee notes.