Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) Chief Executive Officer Twalib Mbarak has said the Integrity Centre, the building that houses the commission, has become too small to carry out its activities.
Mr Mbarak on Wednesday told the National Assembly’s Justice and Legal Affairs Committee that they can no longer fit in the building and therefore need a bigger place.
Despite the building costing the taxpayer Sh1.5 billion to acquire the building, Kenyans may yet again dig deeper into their pockets if the commission succeeds in acquiring a new space.
“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.