Suspended Nairobi County Finance Executive Charles Kerich has been ordered to report to the Industrial Area Remand and Allocation Prison after the High Court declined to suspend a three-month jail sentence handed to him for contempt of court.
In a ruling delivered on Tuesday, Justice Francis Gikonyo dismissed Kerich’s application to halt the sentence, clearing the way for him to begin serving the jail term imposed in May.
The order by the judge for Kerich to report to the prison authorities is the latest turn of events in an ongoing legal saga that has seen Nairobi County fail to pay the court awarded legal fees.
Kerich received his jail sentence after the court determined that he did not observe orders for Nairobi County to pay the sum of about Ksh107 million in legal fees.
The amount arose out of a lengthy legal case that was between a local firm and the county government and which had been certified for payment via Certificate of Order Against the Government in November 2024.
In spite of the court orders, no payments were made hence contempt proceedings against the county’s chief finance officer.
In his latest judgment, Justice Gikonyo refused to suspend the sentence.
The contempt case has been in court for several years, with the law firm accusing Nairobi County of repeatedly ignoring lawful court orders despite being properly served with the relevant documents.
When delivering the initial ruling on May 19, Justice Gikonyo found that Kerich had knowingly failed to obey the court’s directives and sentenced him to three months in prison without the option of paying a fine.
The ruling had immediate consequences for the county government.
Shortly after the conviction, Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja suspended Kerich from his position as County Executive Committee Member for Finance and appointed Ibrahim Auma Nyangoya to take over the role in an acting capacity to ensure the county’s financial operations continued uninterrupted.
Kerich has also been under pressure from the Nairobi County Assembly.
In recent weeks, Members of the County Assembly ordered his arrest after he failed to appear before the Assembly’s Committee on Implementation to answer questions on the county’s 2026/27 budget, directing police to produce him before the committee.
Tuesday’s decision means Kerich is now expected to begin serving the three-month sentence unless a higher court intervenes and overturns or suspends the orders.
