The High Court has ordered two National Treasury junior staff to return a combined sum of Sh39.1 million earned fraudulently as extraneous and facilitation allowances for their participation in the national budget making process.
The case against the pair was filed by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC).
Justice Lucy Njuguna directed Mr Robert Theuri and Ms Doris Simiyu to refund Sh20.3 million and Sh18.8 million, respectively, following a finding that the amounts were fraudulently embezzled from National Treasury.
They earned the amounts between January 2020 and July 2022 under various heads including taskforce and committee allowance, extraneous allowance, entertainment, facilitation, meals and unspecified allowances.
The payments for their work in the 2020/21 and 2021/22 fiscal years' supplementary budgets and the medium term budget plans.
The court found that the pair was not entitled to the allowances by virtue of job groups and lack of approval of the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC).
"This court has carefully gone through the various payment vouchers for the payments that were made to the defendants, and I can confirm that none of the payments were made upon advice by SRC," said the judge in the verdict dated June 4, 2025.
"The defendants in their evidence admitted that there is no allowance known as facilitation allowance under the Public Service Commission Human Resources manual, yet, looking at some of the payments that were made to them, some of it fell under this category and quite an amount of money was paid to each of them under that head," said Justice Njuguna.
Allowing a recovery suit filed by EACC, the judge said the allowances were paid against the binding advice of the SRC.
The court also noted that some of the allowances were not specified and yet the defendants received those sums.
"The court is curious how the defendants were members of so many committees with overlapping duties and one cannot help but wonder how they were managing to deliver the services in addition to their normal duties," she observed.
Justice Njuguna added that in the case of Mr Theuri he was paid entertainment allowance when he was not entitled to the same by virtue of his job group.
He admitted in evidence that it was only the staff in job groups T, U and V who were entitled, yet, he was not in any of those job groups at the material time as he was in job group K.
Ms Simiyu admitted that she was paid allowances for reconciliation of National Treasury financial statements and it was not a budget making process and that no approval was sought for the same.
Further, she admitted that she was paid allowances for reconciliation of motor vehicle leasing expenditure and yet it was not part of budget making and no approval was given for payment of that allowance.
Denying irregular payments, they however stated that the allowances were paid legally for the work they did at the Treasury.
The court heard that an ad-hoc committee had been established to inquire into allegations leveled against the National Treasury officials by the EACC. In its report that was presented to the then Principal Secretary through an internal memo dated January 25, 2022, the committee found that the two defendants were not culpable for any loss of public funds.
The committee had also found that all payments made to them were legally approved.
They told court that the payments were made within the law and they were paid amongst other officers of the National Treasury after being appointed to various committees by the accounting officer through the Head of the Accounting Unit.
On whether they were entitled to the allowances, the court heard that the defendants performed the duties assigned to them within terms of reference which were given to them by the appointing authority.
In addition, the payments were made with approval by heads of department including the accounting officer, which approval could not have been given if the defendants had not performed their duties as instructed.
