Former Homa Bay County Assembly Clerk Bob Kephas Otieno has been ordered to refund KSh12.57 million in public funds after the High Court found that money paid out through the Assembly’s salary suspense account between 2015 and 2017 was fraudulently channelled to two individuals who were not county employees.
In a judgment delivered on October 16, 2026, Justice Benjamin Musyoki ruled in favour of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), directing Otieno, Lillian Achieng and David Obonyo to pay the government KSh12,571,166.50.
The case has revived questions about the handling of public funds in Homa Bay, where money meant for legitimate government obligations was allegedly turned into payments for people with no employment or contractual relationship with the county.
According to the EACC, the questionable transactions began on December 24, 2015, and continued until December 22, 2017. During that period, Otieno authorised payments totalling more than KSh12.5 million into a joint bank account belonging to Achieng and Obonyo.
The transfers were recorded as salaries, but investigators found that neither recipient worked for the Homa Bay County Assembly or the county government. They were also not registered suppliers or contractors who could legitimately receive public money for goods or services.
Achieng was employed by the Teachers Service Commission, while Obonyo held a managerial position at Equity Bank’s Homa Bay branch. Their employment elsewhere was not, by itself, evidence of wrongdoing. The central issue was that investigators found no documented basis for the payments from county funds.
The irregularity was compounded by the pattern of transactions. Investigators established that the amounts varied considerably and were transferred on irregular dates, unlike the predictable monthly payments ordinarily associated with a payroll.
The money passed through the Assembly’s salary suspense account, a financial mechanism normally used to hold salary-related payments pending reconciliation or clearance. Its use in the transactions raised questions about the controls governing the release of public funds.
The EACC subsequently filed a recovery suit in 2022, seeking to recover the money from the three individuals. The High Court’s ruling now orders them to reimburse the government for the loss.
For Homa Bay residents, the case is a reminder that accountability in county government is not merely about the size of budgets approved by the Assembly, but also about the systems that determine where the money eventually goes.
The recovery order marks a significant step in the effort to reclaim the funds. It also places renewed attention on the responsibility of public officials to ensure that every payment made in the name of government has a clear, lawful and verifiable purpose.
