A senior official attached to the Nairobi Water and Sewerage Company (NAWASCO) has been arrested by Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission (EACC) detectives for allegedly demanding a Ksh50,000 bribe.
According to sources close to K24 Digital, Jimna Kubia Maina is accused of demanding a bribe of Ksh50,000, which was later renegotiated to Ksh25,000 in order to reconnect water supply to a residential building with 17 units in Kahawa West, Nairobi County. The disconnection affected 17 families.
The suspect was arrested after a complaint from a landlord at Kahawa West in Nairobi, who claimed that he had been paying exaggerated water bills to the Nairobi Water and Sewerage Company arising from a faulty water meter. As a result, the complainant engaged officials of the Meter Reader Division of NAWASCO to replace the faulty water meter with a new one.
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"The officials accepted to replace the meter after confirming that it was indeed faulty. However, in order to fix the matter, the officials demanded that the complainant pays a facilitation fee of Ksh25,000, failure to which they forget about the assistance they needed and continue paying the exaggerated water bills arising from the faulty meter," a source privy to the matter intimated.
The officials were paid the demanded money before they replaced the meter on July 27, 2023.
Immediately after the meter was replaced, Maina, a supervisor, went to the site and demanded that the complainant pays arrears of Ksh17,000 as indicated in the previous faulty meter. The complainant paid and hoped that the matter had been conclusively sorted.
'New' Nairobi Water bill
On the following day, July 28, 2023, Maina went back to the site and disconnected the water in the entire building alleging that NAWASCO had discovered a new pending bill of Ksh100,000 based on the previous faulty meter.
On Monday, July 31, 2023, Maina is reported to have summoned the complainant to appear before him in his office in Pangani.
"When the complainant went to the suspect’s office, the suspect threatened to increase the pending water bill to Ksh240,000 if the complainant did not pay him what he referred to as “chai ya wazee” of Ksh50,000," the source added.
"The complainant pleaded with him to reduce the bribe amount as he could not raise that much. Eventually, the suspect agreed to reduce the amount to Ksh25,000 and instructed the complainant to call him when ready with the cash so that he could instruct his juniors to reconnect the water immediately."
It is then that the complainant reported the matter to EACC for assistance. The commission immediately investigated the matter and mounted an operation leading to the arrest of the suspect at Kariobangi South where he had gone to meet the complainant to collect the bribe amount.
He was arrested after he had received the amount and escorted to Integrity Centre Police Station where he was processed and later booked at Kilimani Police Station where he will spend the night pending further processing.
