The Treasury became the new owner of Integrity Centre, the building that hosts the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission’s (EACC) headquarters, in Nairobi after the National Land Commission wired Sh1.5 billion to shadowy businessmen who previously owned it in 2018.
The shadowy shareholders of the little-known company made Sh1.1 billion profit off Kenyan taxpayers on the building, which was valued at Sh400 million only five years ago.
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However,despite taxpayers coughing up Sh1.5 billion to acquire Integrity Centre, the place has now become too small and the anti-graft body wants a bigger space to carry out its activities.
Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) Chief Executive Officer Twalib Mbarak Wednesday told the National Assembly’s Justice and Legal Affairs Committee that they can no longer fit in the building and need a bigger place.
“The current space is too small for our current workforce. Mr Chairman, I invite your committee to pay us a visit and see for yourselves how squeezed we are,” Mr Mbarak told the committee chaired by Baringo North MP William Cheptumo.
The property at the junction of Valley Road and Jakaya Kikwete roads measures 0.4867 hectares and before acquiring the building, EACC was paying a monthly rent of Sh5.83 million, which comes to Sh70 million a year.
The amount was revised upwards in a 2015 lease renewal that was supposed to end this year.
The EACC has been housed at the premises since 1997. The property was previously owned by the collapsed Trust Bank.
The bank, associated with former minister Nicholas Biwott, collapsed in 1993, and when the EACC started using the premises four years later, the property was held as a public asset by the Deposit Protection Fund.