Senators put counties on the spot for engaging external advocates

Standing Committee on Devolution and Justice, Legal Affairs and Human Rights Co-Chairs Senator Raphael Chimera (left) and Abas Sheikh Mohamed during a joint meeting to consider the petition by Laban Omusundi regarding restricting county governments from hiring external law firms for legal representation in court cases at the Senate Chambers, Parliament, Nairobi. June 10th,2024 [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

The Senate has set in motion plans to bar county governments from hiring external law firms to represent county governments in cases

Senators say the cases can be handled by County Attorneys after it was established that counties have over Sh56 billion pending bills owed for external legal services.

The Senate Devolution Committee and Senate Justice Committee which were hearing a petition regarding restricting County Governments from hiring external law firms for legal representation in court cases on Monday said that some of the claims made might be avenues for corruption.

The two committees had invited the Executive Director Grassroot Civilian Oversight Initiative Laban Omusundi who has filed a petition seeking to bar counties from hiring law firms to represent County Governments in civil court cases by coming up with a legal framework to protect the loss of billions of shillings going into this.

Kisii Senator Richard Onyonka wondered why all counties were hiring external attorneys yet they have county attorneys with the most interesting scenario being that the pending bills owed to legal firms by the 47 county governments are Sh 56 billion with Nairobi County owing them Sh 29 billion.

“What is even worrying is that most of this cases have been set up to pilfer county funds, we must stop this by defending our counties from becoming the dens of corruption through this outright avenue of theft where billions of shillings that could have been put into better use are lost,” said Onyonka.

The Kisii Senator said there is nothing wrong with an Advocate practicing law with the counties but they want a constitutional engagement that protects both parties with many County Attorneys not advising their counties to observe the law leading to most of them losing the cases which may end bankrupting the counties.

Marsabit Senator Mohammed Chute said that more research needs to be done by the petitioner showing what each county owes external legal services so that the Senate can grasp the weight of the matter since it can no longer be business as usual with unnecessary loss of county funds through this.

“There is need to look into ways of managing counties to ensure that they do not use millions of shillings to pay for legal services yet they could use the county government hired lawyers to offer similar services cheaply, this is in most cases a scheme to steal county funds,” said Chute.

Siaya Senator Oburu Oginga saying that the habit of hiring external lawyers has been an avenue of pilfering public funds in counties and government parastatals and should be stopped forthwith and that the senate needs to take serious mitigating measures to protect counties from losing billions.

Nominated Senator Catherine Mumma said that it should be established whether counties were getting value through engaging external advocates with the Controller of Budget giving a breakdown of expenditure used in paying for external advocates for each county.

Nominated Senator Raphael Chimera said that in most cases county officials will approach a legal firm and attach a particular figure of money to be paid to them so that they can be able to get a huge kickback leading to the loss of public funds saying that most of the cases do not deserve huge payments.

Omusundi told the Senate that his petition was motivated by the Controller of Budget yearly Reports on expenditures of County Governments where there are billions of taxpayers’ money paid to Law Firms for Representing County Governments in Courts on various issues.

“This is despite the fact that there are County Government Attorneys established in line with County Government Act 2012 Section 43, well facilitated by tax payers’ money to execute that mandate of Representing County Governments in legal matters,” said Omusundi.

The petitioner said that some of these huge court cases are informed by deliberate administrative decisions, well knowing that there will be no personal responsibility to that effect, and most likely these can become big enterprises for some skewed individuals in public sector to get money from these law firms as kickbacks.

 Omusundi sought for measures to deter deliberate erroneous administrative decisions that will make sure that everybody is held responsible personally for his or her Administrative decisions she or he makes that may end in Courts.

The petitioner defeats the objective of devolution which was to bring services closer to ordinary terms bearing in mind that these huge junk of public funds have the capacity to transform health care services in County Governments which are now on death beds.

“My efforts to raise this matter for its justification with Controller of Budget and Attorney General of the Republic of Kenya bared no fruits for there was no respond to that effect, this matter is not pending in any Constitutional Court in the Republic of Kenya between the parties,” said Omusundi.

Omusundi sought for the recall of any law in the subject matter that fails to prioritize the interest of the public appealing to the Senators to take up measures that will safeguard counties against exploitative legal fees that may end up crippling counties.