House committee directs JSC to table procurement details

A House committee has directed the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) to provide minutes detailing how various procurement queries relating to tenders issued by the commission were resolved.

The minutes that they want to provide include those touching on the house of the Chief Justice indicating whether the said house has since been occupied or not, the court building that was never occupied after it was alleged it had harmful substances as well as the details of the Sh115 million court award issued to Riley Security Services and others.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chaired by Nominated MP John Mbadi told the Registrar of the Judiciary Ann Amadi (pictured) who had appeared before the committee to respond to audit queries that they need evidence to understand how the said issues were resolved as public money was spent on them.

“When JSC makes decisions not to honor  awards and later honors them we want you to provide us with minutes to show how this decision was arrived at….We also need to know the current status of all these issues and see whether as the judiciary you have changed the way things are being done in terms of procurement,” said Mbadi.

He added: “if I recall sometimes back, there was a very big issue about these matters and it almost became untidy

The directive came after Amadi told the committee they had paid Sh114.6 million related to court awards to Riley Security Services (Sh53.8 million), restatement of staff (Sh30.2 million) and Lavington Security Limited (Sh33 million).

Although she clarified that the judiciary had put its house in order and thus procurement questions have not been arising, she explained that the said payments arose due to court awards in favour of the said companies.