A Nairobi County Budget Committee sitting held on Monday led to a self-incriminating defense by Liquor Board boss - Hesbon Agwena.
The committee had convened to figure out why there was such a huge drop in revenue collection within the county, with liquor licensing highlighted as one of the streams that had recorded declining revenues.
Committee chairman - Robert Mbatia summoned the liquor licensing boss in order to verify the figures regarding licensed bars within the city as well as revenue collected over the last two years.
Mr Agwena revealed that were a total of 12,500 bars in Nairobi as reported in a 2016 audit.
He then indicated that in the 2016/2017 financial year, they had aimed at collecting revenue from 7,000 bars, while in the current financial year the board's target was 4,800.
This prompted the committee chair to question why the targeted bars kept declining yet new bars were popping up across the city every other day.
“I would like to know what has been informing your decision to reduce the target of bars from an initial target of 7,000 to now about 4,800 yet the number of bars opening is increasing on a daily basis,” Mbatia divulged.
According to Capital News, Mr Agwena in his defence stated that most of the bars were located in slums and residential areas thus unqualified for the issuance of a license.
It was this information that a member of the committee - Emily Oduor used to castigate the licensing head, as the bars termed as unqualified were still operational.
Mr Agwena was caught flat-footed by his own words and had a hard time explaining himself as bars that didn't fit the licensing criteria should have been shut down as is the Law.
He went on to admit that corruption was a possibility citing that he didn't know the activities carried out by some of his officers on the ground.
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