Mystery of ‘ghostly’ Sh310m CJ house that mocks the Judiciary
House number 131 in Runda, Nairobi, stands eerie conspicuous nestled in a pristine and arboreal city neighbourhood despite its palatial and stately stature.
That this bungalow, which cost the taxpayer a whopping Sh310 million to house the Chief Justice, is still unoccupied six years later, is testimony of the pervasive plunder and wastage of public resources in a country so poor that 65 per cent of the population lives on less than Sh200 a day.
According to recent figures released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Kenya is one of the unequal countries in Africa with the gap between the poor and rich widening by the day — and part of this is blamed on the access to public resources by a few.
And back to the house, whose tragic story remains unravelled even as the fight against graft and abuse of public office has been intensified, especially in the last one year. To date, the house has remained unoccupied with only a farmhand and administration police officers keeping guard at the premises.
Official residence
The intended occupant, Chief Justice David Maraga lives in Karen, Nairobi, kilometres away from the house taxpayers paid for as an official residence of the head of the Judiciary.
The house was purchased from Machakos Senator Johnstone Muthama in a transaction shrouded in controversy leading to a probe by Parliament and Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission (EACC) in 2013.
Contacted, Judiciary Chief Registrar Anne Amadi confirmed nobody from the Judiciary lives in the house describing it as “inhabitable and in dire need of rehabilitation”.
“We had started the process (of renovation), but after our budget was cut, it stalled. But now that our budget has been restored, we are going to look for a contractor,” she told the People Daily. The house was purchased for use as the official residence of former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga and his successors but its transaction saw former Judiciary Registrar Gladys Shollei, now Uasin Gishu Woman Rep and seven other people, arraigned for non-compliance with procurement laws.
When People Daily visited the house yesterday, there was no one at the main gate, not even the police — an indication that the place hardly has visitors. The house is easily accessed through Limuru Road via United Nations Avenue in Gigiri, Nairobi.
The house, roofed with red bricks and tucked between well-maintained houses, paints a picture of desolation. “Just find your way to the Runda Ridge Street. It will be easy for you to recognise the house. It’s neglected and so will easily single it out,” said a source who helped People Daily team trace the property.
That the house, which Amadi said was inhabitable at the time of purchase, has been given little attention by the Judiciary is demonstrated by a dilapidated white wooden cubicle meant to host a security guard.
The cubicle, rotting into waste, has been abandoned on one side of the gate where it is supported by an unkempt bougainvillea fence, the only thing that beautifies the nearly 30-metre driveway to the house. When we arrived at the gate, we sought the intervention of a security guard at the next gate to reach the house caretaker.
“No one lives there. It’s just one worker and two police officers who mostly stay inside the compound. Unless I call them for you or I give you their phone numbers to call, it might take long for them to know you are here,” the security guard from Jim’s Security firm said but declined to disclose his name.
Shortly after, a man of average height donning a navy blue dust coat made a lonely walk from the house to the metal grilled gate. “What do you want?” he posed.
“We are looking for the owners of this place,” this writer responded.
“This house belongs to the Judiciary. Only two police officers and I are always here,” the caretaker answered but declined to say his name. He said the premises hardly gets visitors, but CJ Maraga makes occasional visits “to just look at how the place is.”
Last February, when she appeared before the National Assembly Justice and Legal Affairs Committee (JLAC), Amadi said the Judiciary cannot interfere with the property since the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) had its control after some Judiciary officers were arrested and charged over its purchase.
“We wrote to (EACC) asking whether we can proceed to renovate the house and whether doing so would jeopardise a court case. Our request had to undergo a lot of processing within the EACC and the courts,” Amadi told the William Cheptumo-led committee.
The purchase was also probed by the Parliamentary Accounts Committee then chaired by former Bundalang’i MP Ababu Namwamba, now Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS) at the Foreign Affairs ministry. The committee visited the property in October 2014 as part of the investigations among other things, a possible collusion between the Judiciary and a valuer during the purchase of the house.
Ugunja MP Opiyo Wandayi, chair of the powerful Public Accounts Committee in the National Assembly, declined to respond to our queries on whether the probe was concluded.
