A forensic audit into a Sh19.7 million road project in Umoja 1 has lifted the lid on what appears to be a carefully choreographed procurement scheme,one that places MCA Mark Mugambi and Ward Development Fund (WDF) officials in the crosshairs of accountability agencies.
The project—construction of Nyangusi Road—was supposed to be a straightforward six-month infrastructure intervention beginning April 18, 2024.
Instead, it is fast emerging as a textbook case of how public procurement rules can be bent, bypassed, and potentially abused to push through questionable deals.
At the centre of the scandal is a shocking discovery: the project had no requisition and no authority to incur expenditure from the user department.
In simple terms, there is no paper trail showing who requested the road, who approved it, or why public funds were committed in the first place.
That single omission alone punches a gaping hole through the legality of the entire project in what is seen as well calculated move to siphon public funds.
Auditors established that the tender was never advertised on the Public Procurement Information Portal or any recognized platform.
There was no open call, no competitive bidding—only a single bidder emerging in what now appears to have been a pre-arranged process.
This raises the most damning question yet: Was this a contract designed for a specific contractor from the outset?
Under Kenya’s procurement laws, direct procurement without proper justification and approval is illegal. Yet, everything about this project—from the lack of advertisement to the emergence of a lone bidder—points to exactly that.
Records show the tender evaluation was conducted on December 18, 2023. However, the professional opinion—a mandatory step that validates the award—was issued 67 days later, on February 23, 2024.
This unexplained delay is not just irregular—it is a potential window for manipulation.
Procurement experts say such gaps are often used to “clean up” paperwork, align documentation, or retrospectively legitimize decisions that had already been made behind closed doors.
The audit found no material approvals, no laboratory test certificates, and no evidence of quality assurance checks.
This effectively means the road could have been constructed using uncertified, potentially substandard materials—putting taxpayers’ money at risk and residents in danger.
A road built without quality control is not development—it is deception.
In their defence, project managers attempted to blame “system technicalities” for the inconsistencies, claiming delays in generating purchase orders and minor date variations.