How Greedy NMS Director Michael Ochieng Masterminded Ghost Deliveries Worth Millions

As a follow-up to the Auditor General report regarding Nairobi County Finances, it’s time to shed light on the budgeted corruption surrounding the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS).

As I said in my previous post, although the corruption saga dates back to 2020-2022, Kenyans deserve to know exactly what happened during that period.

This expose will focus on the construction department procurement carried out by the NMS and the key players involved in the shady deals that cost taxpayers millions of shillings.

The main player in this corruption scandal was an engineer named Michael Ochieng, who happened to be the director of Transport and Public Works at NMS.

Let me explain how it happened.

When NMS came into existence, it was a non-existent entity with no pre-qualified suppliers.

Therefore, they used the Public Works Supplies Branch database and info to do procurement, using the Framework Contracts already given.

The framework contracts are contracts that have already been agreed upon, with prices running for two years, with LPOs being the purchase order.

No new procurement is done when goods are required.

You just launch a Purchase Order (PO).

Engineer Ochieng was responsible for requisitioning the materials needed for Public Works and verifying them.

He was the person who had to accept and verify that what was ordered was what was being delivered.

NMS had two storage plants: one along Nanyuki Road in the Industrial Area and the other along Kangundo Road.

The Nanyuki Road plant was the main storage area and it was here that Ochieng used to meet suppliers and demand bribes while pretending to verify what was being delivered.

In the next post, I will demonstrate how this fraud activity was carried out.

End of Part 1.