By Antynet Ford
Two officials from Nairobi City County are expected to be arraigned in court today after they were yesterday apprehended by officers from the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC.) over an alleged scheme to divert county parking revenue.
The two, Daniel Odidi Ganje; the Officer-In-Charge of the Data Office at St. Peter Cleavers Revenue offices in Starehe Sub-County, and John Gachagua Mburu, a Mt. Kenya University Student attached at the said Revenue Offices who is an Intern were arrested after allegations stemmed of them of redirecting county revenue.
Odidi and Mburu reportedly manipulated the Nairobi Revenue Services portal to falsely show full payment of fees.
The scheme involved asking a client, who came to pay annual parking fees for his commercial vehicles totaling Sh45,000, to transfer the amount to one of the officer’s private bank accounts.
In return, the two had promised a reduced payment than the set amount by the county.
To prove the feasibility of this scam, the suspects entered the complainant’s vehicle registration details into the revenue portal, which then falsely indicated full payment.
This deception was confirmed when the complainant saw that the portal displayed his parking fees as fully paid for the year, despite not making any actual deposit.
This incident highlights a broader issue of revenue diversion in various county governments, significantly affecting their financial performance, often worse than the municipalities they replaced.
Further the arrest comes when the Adhoc committee on revenue decline was previously told that the County has been losing revenue through system failure.
Motorists have been accused of being the most notorious for reversing the money.
“Now and then we experience some downfalls in the systems and parking is the greatest casualty of this. Some of the parking fees are supposed to be collected immediately, especially around the banks and malls but when the system is down, we lose a lot of money because the motorists park for a few minutes or say a short period and leave after transactions. The vehicles can hence not be clamped because you cannot see what is going on in the system.” Lucy Kanini, the officer in charge of loading zones explained.