Kenya's auditor general says tycoon Mary Wambui's firm won $3.1 million in tenders she helped oversee

Kenya's Auditor General Nancy Gathungu has flagged a conflict of interest in the award of fibre optic contracts under the government's digital superhighway project, finding that a company linked to former Communications Authority board chairperson Mary Wambui Mungai received Sh401.6 million ($3.1 million) in tenders while Wambui held oversight responsibility over the fund financing those same contracts.

The findings are contained in Gathungu's audit report for the year ending June 2025, which names Nightigale Enterprises Ltd as a company in which Wambui and her daughter Evelyn Nyambura Mungai held controlling interests at the time the tenders were advertised, opened and evaluated.

Wambui was appointed to chair the CA Board by President William Ruto on December 2, 2022. Three days later, on December 5, she resigned as a director of Nightigale Enterprises and transferred her 500 shares to her daughter Evelyn Nyambura, who had returned to the company's shareholding structure the previous month. Wambui's daughter remained a director and 70 percent shareholder of Nightigale when the Information and Communication Technology Authority advertised the digital superhighway tenders in February 2023, when those tenders were opened on March 28, 2023, and when ICTA informed Nightigale in April 2023 that it intended to award the company a Sh54.3 million ($421,000) backbone and metro fibre optic contract.

On April 29, 2023, Wambui chaired a CA Board meeting that ratified the December 2022 memorandum of understanding between CA and ICTA for the digital superhighway project and approved a technical cooperation agreement between the two agencies. The board also approved a budget of Sh5 billion ($38.8 million) drawn from the Universal Service Fund to finance the first phase of project implementation. The USF is managed by the CA, the body Wambui was chairing.

Evelyn Nyambura resigned from Nightigale's directorship on June 19, 2023, one week before the company signed its first digital superhighway contract on June 26, 2023.

"Audit review of the bidders' company ownership document, CR 12 and resume of board members, revealed that two companies in which the Board Chairperson and a Board member of CA had controlling interest in, were awarded contracts by ICT Authority in the Digital Super Highway Project Funded by the USF," Gathungu said in her report.

She added that the named board members were either managing directors or shareholders of the awarded companies at the point of tender opening and evaluation, and that they later resigned from their respective companies after the companies were awarded contracts.

In the 2024/2025 financial year, Nightigale implemented contracts valued at Sh401.6 million ($3.1 million) under the digital superhighway project. A second unnamed CA board member's company received Sh82.16 million ($637,000) in contracts under the same programme.

The Consumer Federation of Kenya filed a petition in 2024 challenging the award of contracts to Nightigale, citing conflict of interest. The petition noted that tender documents for the digital superhighway explicitly stated that public employees and their close relatives, including children, were not eligible to participate in the tenders. Nightigale was one of 62 firms that had bid for the fibre optic contracts.

CA Director-General David Mugonyi acknowledged in court filings that Wambui participated in the board meeting where approvals for digital superhighway projects were granted. He claimed, however, that Wambui and her daughter were not directors of Nightigale as at April 2023, a claim contradicted by the Companies Registry, which confirmed in correspondence to Mugonyi in July 2024 that Evelyn Nyambura was a director and shareholder of the company until June 2023.

Nightigale's chief executive Edward Njenga Muniu separately confirmed in an August 2024 letter to ICTA that Wambui resigned from the company on December 5, 2022 and that her daughter resigned on June 19, 2023.

President Ruto revoked Wambui's appointment to the CA Board in August 2025. He subsequently appointed her to chair the Athi Water Works Development Agency board. The High Court case filed by Cofek challenging the tender awards remains active.

Wambui is simultaneously fighting a separate legal battle to prevent Equity Bank from auctioning the Glee Hotel, her Sh9.5 billion ($73.6 million) luxury property in Runda, Nairobi, after defaulting on an Sh8.267 billion ($64.1 million) loan facility. The High Court last week ordered her to deposit Sh100 million ($775,000) within seven days to halt the planned auction.