Corridors of Power | The Star, Kenya

Are some senior officers in Nairobi working round the clock to ensure the county reverts to the manual system of collecting revenue? Well, a mole has whispered that officers, some decades old at City Hall, are fighting behind the scene to have the county abandon the automated revenue collection system. The officers want the county to stop the plans to hire another firm to take over from JamboPay, whose contract ends in a month. They have complained they have been starving since 201, when, JamboPay was contracted. The firm was brought on board to seal revenue leakages that were associated with the manual system. Our moles hope Governor Mike Sonko will not be arm-twisted to abandon this idea that has brought sanity in revenue collection in the city.

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A governor is in trouble with investigators. Reason? The county boss has reportedly been trying to force the investigators to admit as part of evidence documents he says he obtained from the office of one of his county executives and which the governor says incriminated the officer who has since left. The investigators have, however, flatly refused arguing the evidence is fraudulent and could easily backfire on them.

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A speaker in Nyanza is on spot over corruption and mismanagement of the assembly. The man, who is accused of single-handedly running the assembly, has irregularly been awarding lucrative tenders worth millions of shillings to his wife. Shockingly, the wife uses proxy companies to acquire the tenders. Sources familiar with the deals say procurement processes are not followed in favour of the speaker’s wife. They say qualified contractors and suppliers are deliberately locked out of such lucrative tenders. Some MCAs want the EACC and the DCI to probe the corrupt deals of the man.

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A first time legislator from Western Kenya has been accused by his constituents for not having any house to point at in Nairobi, despite living in the city for long before being elected. The legislators, who is a of another popular organisation, has been accused of always meeting his supporters, constituents and other members in a specific hotel in Nairobi. The MP's handlers have been having a rough time on social media to defend their man's queer behaviour.

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Late last year, Corridors told you of a Governor's wife from Nyanza who sits in county's Cabinet meetings and at times 'chairs' when the globe-trotting husband is not around. Well, our moles again whispered to us that the 'first lady' has gone a notch higher and is now signing even official documents on behalf of the husband, who rarely stays in the county. Recently, the lady who has the rare gift of doing exact replica of her husband signature is said to have signed a sacking letter sending one of the senior county officials home. According to our moles, the woman has signed many of such official letters without anyone detecting.