WILL KIAMBA SURVIVE AGAIN AT CITY HALL?

After the sacking of Tom Tinega as the parking officer at Nairobi City County weeks back, now eyes are on Jimmy Kiamba, the chief finance officer.

Tinega who was sacked due to what insiders term corruption in his parking department in relation to fee collection is now in the cold. Ever since he was shown the door, City Hall has been experiencing increase in parking fee collection with word it has doubled.

For Kiamba, he has been implicated by the county public accounts committee over loss of Sh94 million in an irregular ICT contract. It happened when he was City Council of Nairobi treasurer.

The county account committee wants him dismissed from the office for sanctioning unlawful payments.

He is said to have made payments to Hausraum Ltd between August 16 2012 and January 2013 totalling to Sh69.5 million. The firm was to provide consultancy services for the establishment of an electronic bill presentment and payment platform at an initial contract sum Sh11.7 million. No work was done.

Also implicated in the scam are other two firms, Customer Care Ltd and Alga Kenya Ltd. Surprisingly according to the report, the are controlled by the same directors.

Sources say following the committee recommendations, tension is high at City Hall with anti-Kiamba forces lobbying for his removal. We have information, a section on the committee were out to be paid to have the report written in Kiamba’s favour. However, the chairman of the committee is accused of demanding more than had been expected to scuttle the report.

The question is will Kiamba survive with claims powerful Central province mafias have sworn to remove him from office? They have even lobbied among MCAs to have him step aside in the coming days.

Already, the county assembly is said to be split on the matter with a number of them claiming Kiamba was sneaked in the position and was not the best candidate.