There are few more damning indictments of public administration than a court discovering that millions of shillings flowed out of government accounts without convincing evidence that taxpayers received anything in return. In a judgment that delivers another bruising blow to Homa Bay’s record on public finance, the High Court has ordered a former county assembly clerk and a couple to refund Sh12.57 million over payments the court found were inadequately accounted for.
Justice Benjamin Musyoki, delivering judgment at the Milimani Law Courts on October 16, ruled that former Homa Bay County Assembly clerk Bob Otieno, Lilian Aloo and her husband were jointly and severally liable for the loss. They must repay the full amount, together with interest at court rates from the filing of the suit and the legal costs incurred by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC).
The ruling is a sharp reminder that government contracts, official signatures and payment approvals cannot, by themselves, transform questionable expenditure into legitimate public spending.
The disputed payments were made between 2015 and 2017. According to the EACC’s case, money was channelled through accounts associated with the county government and assembly, passed through an Equity Bank suspense account and ultimately deposited into an account jointly held by Aloo and her husband.
The circumstances were striking. Aloo was a teacher employed by the Teachers Service Commission and had never worked for the County Assembly. Yet payments reaching the couple’s joint account were recorded as salaries, despite her absence from the assembly payroll.
Investigators also found no supporting invoices or payment records in the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS). Procurement officials could not produce the tender documents, advertisements, requisitions, evaluation minutes or award letters ordinarily expected to substantiate the transactions.
The defendants denied wrongdoing. They maintained that the payments were not salaries but proceeds from services provided by their business, Damila Enterprises, including catering for the funerals of three assembly members. They also presented agreements relating to renovations, landscaping, perimeter walls, roofing and other works.
But the paperwork failed to settle the central question: what, precisely, had the public received for its money?
The court found that documents presented by the defendants accounted for only Sh7.1 million, leaving Sh5.46 million unexplained. Even where contracts existed, the defendants had not supplied sufficient evidence, such as completion certificates, to demonstrate that the contracted works had actually been performed.
Justice Musyoki rejected their explanations concerning missing procurement records and the alleged tax difficulties that supposedly necessitated payment into the couple’s joint account. The tax documents relied upon, he noted, dated from 2023, years after the disputed transactions had ended.
The judge also dismissed the claim that money subsequently transferred to Otieno represented repayment of a loan, finding no evidence that such a loan had been advanced.
“The existence of a contract is not proof of work done,” the judge observed, underscoring a principle that should be elementary in public procurement but is too often obscured by bureaucratic formalities.
The ruling carries significance beyond the three defendants. It reinforces the responsibility of accounting officers to ensure that public funds are properly managed, payments are justified and services are delivered before contractors are paid.
For Homa Bay, the judgment adds to a succession of public-money recovery cases involving county officials and disputed payments. For taxpayers, the message is simpler: public money is not an administrative convenience to be distributed on the strength of signatures and assurances.
The court has ordered restitution. Whether the money is recovered in full will be another test of accountability.
In Kenya’s devolved governments, the real measure of integrity is not how neatly expenditure appears in official records, but whether it produces something tangible for the people who financed it.