L.K. Nathans
Mombasa county is on the spotlight for allegedly spending 1.3 million to make a photo album as a gift to governor Joho on his birthday. The allegations which were initiated by a human rights group known as Muslims for Human Rights (MUHURI) reveal shocking details that hint to significant misappropriation of funds.
In a letter to the governor which was drafted on Monday, March 25 , the lobby group reveal the Mombasa county department of communications had struck a deal with a company known as Adam Photobooks in 2018 to put together a photo album illustrating Joho’s milestones since he became governor.
The group alleges that both the County Director of Communication Richard Chacha and his deputy Ahmed Mudathi were responsible for single sourcing the contract with the idea that all the money for the project would be contributed by staff from the the Communications and Media Department.
Initially, Adam Photobooks which is co-owned by sisters Khuwaida Hamid and Aisha Mohammed had been contracted and agreed to do the job for KSh 313,000. As had been agreed, Adam Photobooks completed the job and submitted it to the County Director of Communications and his deputy.
However, in an interesting turn of events, the sisters never received payments for the job. This prompted MUHURI to initiate a probe into the matter only to find out that the said contract had been done by a different company for KSh 1.3 million, roughly quadruple the amount Adam Photobooks was to be paid.
“We found out that Chacha and Mudathir opted to drop Adam Photobooks and awarded the contract to another company (the name still not known) at a price of KSh 1.3 million which is almost 4 times the price quoted by Adam Photobooks that belongs to Khuwaida Hamid and Aisha Mohamed,” the letter read.
When contacted by the group, the county officials rubbished the claims and said that Adam Photobooks was yet to be paid for the job. They were, however, weary of MUHURI’s allegations seeing the light of day indicating that there was something fishy about the way the project was done.
“However, MUHURI is yet to find out when the payment was made and to which company. According to reliable sources the two showed self-reproaches by blocking the story from being published in the media and stating willingness to settle the bill of Adam Photobooks from own funds,”
MUHURI hopes that the Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission office will look into the matter to find out what really happened.
