Governor Johnson Sakaja’s administration says it currently conducting internal investigations over the alleged award of ‘over-exaggerated’ and bloated fees for legal services offered to the county government of Nairobi.
In a recent report, the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) indicated that the Nairobi City County Government owes Ksh. 10B to various law firms in pending bills. According to Sakaja, while the bills will eventually be settled by City Hall, some of them were found to have been inflated.
“To address the problem of huge pending bills in unpaid legal fees, I directed the County Attorney to appoint a Legal fees assessment committee composed of 5 advocates. The committee has so far reviewed 44 fee notes and the process is still ongoing. The initial demanded amount in the 44 matters that had previously been assessed by an individual was Kshs. 5,112, 019,527. After reassessment, the amount now stands at Kshs. 2,399,655,042, therefore saving the County Government a total of Kshs. 2,712,364,485,”
“Key among them were taxations filed by various advocates wherein various law firms were claiming Kshs. 1,153,868,556 from the county, The county defended these matters and courts brought down the fees tasked down to Kshs. 6,672,951 thereby saving the county Kshs. 1,147,195,605,” he explained
“I want to assure Nairobians that the necessary legal and disciplinary action will be taken against any advocate found to have awarded Law firms fees that were not commensurate to the work done,” noted Sakaja in a statement Thursday morning
He was however quick to point out that the legal pending fees in question were from the previous administrations.
“The current pending bills were inherited from the previous administration and are not bills incurred during my term in office. My administration has a responsibility to settle these obligations once the authenticity of these bills is determined,” he said
To save the county from such a burden, the governor says he will equip the office of the county Attorney and stop over-reliance on external advocates.
“Fifty (50) lawyers will be employed to boost internal capacity with a view of handling all legal matters internally and saving costs incurred from engaging external counsel,” noted Sakaja
The county says it is also in advanced deliberations with the Salaries Remuneration Commission (SRC) to ensure that lawyers working for the Nairobi County are well remunerated to attract competence.
