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Nairobi County is has been asked to expedite payment of Ksh6.97 billion in pending bills owed to law firms from cases handled by lawyers since 2017.
According to the Nairobi County Assembly Committee on Justice and Legal affairs, 130 law companies are demanding Ksh 6, 971, 837,929 from the county government.
Among the companies demanding bulk of the cash that the committee wants looked into, is Miller and Company Advocates demanding Ksh2.298 billion, Kandie Mudeizi and Mutai Company advocates seeking Ksh530, 809,848, KTK and Company advocates with Ksh413, 000,000 and Nyamberi & Company advocates at Ksh 500,586372.
According to their findings by the Joseph Komu led Justice and legal affairs Committee, there existed two reports on pending bills in the 2018/1 financial year.
On the 27th of October 2021 Clerk of the senate wrote to Governor Anne Kananu requesting a statement over an alleged illegal payment of legal fees for outsourced law firms by the Nairobi City County Government.
Among the matters Senate wanted clarified were the reasons as why the county had paid law firms 31 percent of total pending bills amounting to Ksh795.9 million from the Ksh 2.5 billion that had been issued to clear pending bills for the 2018/19 financial year.
The committee is now recommending that the county executive take appropriate measures to urgently recruit and capacitate the county attorney’s office with the legal council.
The Nairobi County Attorney Lydia Kwamboka raised concerns with the rise in pending bills touching on legal fees and pointed out that formation of an in-house council will save the assembly huge bill that is facing them from lawyers.
“I have been wanting to create an inner house team of lawyers in order to curb the number of cases we give to external lawyers whose fees is now and again accumulating because our budget is never enough to pay all lawyers handling our matters,” said Kwamboka
“I am borrowing from what happens in the Attorney Generals Chamber where we have state councils defending government. I want to bring the cost down and eventually do away with external lawyers”