The Nairobi County Sports Director has told court that former Governor Mike Sonko did everything he could to seal the loopholes in the County revenue collection system.
While testing in Sonko’s defense in the Sh 10 million graft case, Tom Tinega said that Sonko started an investigation into Web Tribe, the company issued with revenue collection tender after they informed him that the system had loopholes.
Tinega, the then Nairobi County Director, Parking told Senior Principal Magistrate Charles Ondieki that he would record the issues in the system and raise them with the governor.
“I would raise the challenges verbally or in writing to the Governor,” Tinega testified.
The witness added that Sonko would be very furious because at that they were looking for revenue for the services of Nairobians.
“If one hour passes without collecting revenue, it is lost. It can not be recovered,” he added.
According to the director, the system had loopholes that allowed Webtribe to deduct the money at source, yet issued invoices to the county government for payment.
The court heard that at some point, the then county boss confronted Mr Muchemi, Webtribe Director over the issues and even threatened to terminate the contract.
Muchemi tried to convince Sonko that the system was perfect but Tinega and his colleagues opposed the same on grounds that the system had been manipulated.
“The Governor was still new in office and did not understand the system but we did. Later on, we sat again and told him the system was not working,” the witness said.
An audio recording of Tinega and Sonko discussing how to get evidence against Webtribe and others responsible for the revenue loss was played in court.
It was Tinega’s testimony that there were a lot of discrepancies in the system.
“On paper we would see figures but in the bank, totally different story. In the bank money was less and on paper, money was huge.”
The court heard that the witness recorded statements with the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) but was never called to testify in this case.
In 2020, Sonko, ROG Security Limited and Anthony Otieno Ombok alias Jamal are charged with several graft related offenses.
The charges include abuse of office, conflict of interest, money laundering, acquisition of proceeds of crime, among others.
The suspects are accused of extorting Sh 10 million as inducement to facilitate payments to Web Tribe Limited by Nairobi County Government and thereby improperly conferred a benefit through ROG Security Limited.
The court found that the suspects had a case to answer and placed them on their defense.
