City finance boss faces arrest after court jails him for defying orders

Nairobi Finance CEC Charles Kerich. [File, Standard]

Nairobi County finance boss is adamant he cannot be arrested in spite of a High Court order that he faces three months in jail for contempt.

Charles Kerich, who was sentenced to three months in prison by the High Court for failing to pay more than Sh106 million to a city law firm, is openly boasting that his connections will shield him from any arrest.

In a letter seen by The Standard, lawyers acting for the firm that obtained the prison sentence have written directly to the Inspector General of Police Douglas Kanja on the order.

They are demanding the immediate arrest of Kerich, and warning that any police officer who declines to execute the committal order on account of Kerich's claimed connections will face criminal liability.

"We are instructed, and we are obliged to place on record, that the Contemnor, Mr Charles Kerich, has been openly bragging in the aftermath of the committal order that he has threats of arrest against him but that he is 'connected to the system' and that 'no police officer can arrest him," states the letter penned by Ogado & Company Advocates through lawyer Gordon Ogado

The prison sentence was delivered on May 19, 2026 by Justice Francis Gikonyo at Milimani High Court's Commercial and Tax Division.

Gikonyo ordered the Nairobi finance boss be jailed for three months without the option of a fine for continuously failing to honour court orders to pay more than Sh106 million owed to a city law firm.

The decision that now throws Kerich political and administrative future into deep uncertainty.

"That the contemnor, Mr. Charles Kerich, the County Executive Committee Member for Finance, Nairobi County Government, is hereby sentenced to serve three months in prison," Justice Gikonyo ordered

The judge further issued a committal order directing the Officer Commanding Station at Central Police Station, Nairobi, to arrest and jail Kerich after the court found that he had deliberately defied orders requiring Nairobi County Government to settle a massive legal debt owed to Kwengu & Company Advocates.

The ruling arose from a contempt application filed by Kwengu & Company Advocates in a dispute tied to more than Sh106.7 million that the Nairobi county government had been ordered to remit to the law firm from funds due to Foton East Africa Limited.

The amount had been certified in a Certificate of Order Against the Government issued on November 29, 2024, following earlier court proceedings.

Court documents show that the legal battle traces back to Miscellaneous Application No. 391 of 2018, in which the law firm accused Nairobi County Government of deliberately refusing to comply with court orders despite being properly served.

An order by Justice Afred Mabeya dated November 27, 2024 had directed the release of the public funds, but Kerich, as the county's Finance CEC and accounting officer under the Public Finance Management Act, wilfully and repeatedly refused to comply.

In his ruling delivered on October 9, 2025, Justice Gikonyo found that Kerich, as the County Executive Committee Member for Finance and the officer responsible for county finances, had full knowledge of the orders yet failed to ensure compliance.

“The order was clear and unambiguous and compelled payment of the sum indicated in the order,” Justice Gikonyo ruled.

“The County Government and the contemnor are aware of the order. The order has not been complied with. The order is still subsisting,” the judge added.

He further declared: “Accordingly, I find the County Executive Committee Member for Finance, Mr. Charles Kerich guilty for contempt of the order dated  November  27, 2024.”

The court heard that Nairobi County Government had been compelled through orders issued on November 27, 2024 to remit Sh106,736,841.83 to the advocates from Sh142 million owed to Foton East Africa Limited pursuant to an earlier decree dated June 29, 2023.

The firm through Lawyer Appell Kwengu, in affidavits filed before court, argued that the county had persistently ignored the orders despite service of the certificate and court decrees upon the Finance docket.

The advocates maintained that Kerich’s continued refusal to honour the decree amounted to deliberate disobedience of lawful court orders and undermined the authority of the judiciary.

Lawyer Appell Kwengu, in affidavits filed before court, argued that the county had persistently ignored the orders despite service of the certificate and court decrees upon the Finance docket.

In the application, the firm argued that court orders must be obeyed by any person, even public officers, adding that the continued disobedience offended constitutional principles governing the rule of law and administration of justice.

The advocates further urged the court to issue warrants of arrest and committal, arguing that all procedural requirements for contempt proceedings had been met, including service of the orders and notices upon the county government.

Justice Gikonyo agreed with the arguments and emphasized that no public officer is above the law once court orders are issued.

The judge also observed that despite being served, neither the respondents including Nairobi County nor the interested party Kerich filed any response opposing the contempt proceedings.

The sentencing now places Kerich at the centre of a potentially explosive political and legal crisis within Nairobi County Government.

Once arrested, Kerich is to be transported and delivered to the Officer in Charge of Industrial Area Remand Prison, where he is to be received and detained for the full duration of the three-month sentence.

Critically, Lawyer Ogado noted in his letter to the Inspector General, the imprisonment is pursuant to contempt of court proceedings and not pursuant to execution of a money decree, meaning that Kerich cannot secure his release merely by paying the decretal sum.

 He must purge the contempt to the satisfaction of the court.

 "Every day that the Contemnor remains unarrested is a day by which the commencement of his sentence is delayed," the letter warns.

The law firm described the intelligence about Kerich's boasts as being of a deeply troubling nature,warning that if accurate, the county official was not merely boasting but was representing to third parties that officers of the National Police Service could be induced, through connections or otherwise, to decline to execute a lawful order of the High Court.

The lawyers warned that any police officer who acceded to such representations would be committing a criminal offence and would themselves be liable for fresh contempt of the court that issued the order.

 "That representation, if acted upon, would constitute a criminal offence on the part of any officer who accedes to it," Lawyer Ogado states in his letter to IG.

In making their case to the Inspector General, Ogado & Company Advocates invoked the landmark matter in which deputy Inspector General Gilbert Masengeli was himself jailed for contempt after defying seven court summons.

 In that case, Justice Lawrence Mugambi had declared: "Impunity and open defiance will not be allowed. Those determined to defy the law will not find refuge. Masengeli's actions of wilfully disobeying court orders undermine the supremacy of the law and the administration of justice."

The lawyers drew the parallel with surgical precision, reminding the Inspector General  Kanja that the entire country is watching once again to see whether the National Police Service will enforce the lasted High Court's order to arrest the Nairobi official Kerich.

 "The answer that the court and the country require now, in May 2026, is the same: will the National Police Service execute the committal order of the High Court, or will it not?" the letter demands.

The firm has given the Inspector General 24 hours to notify them in writing of the steps taken, including the precise time of Kerich's arrest and the time of his delivery to Industrial Area Remand Prison.

Should the police fail to act, Ogado & Company Advocates have reserved the right to file an urgent application before the High Court seeking a mandatory order compelling execution of the committal, report the matter to the Independent Policing Oversight Authority for investigation of any officer found to have declined to act, and place the full circumstances,  including Kerich's reported boasts,before the court at the earliest opportunity.

The letter has been copied to Justice Gikonyo himself, the Registrar of the Commercial and Tax Division at Milimani, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, and IPOA.

Kerich, a former journalist, was first appointed as a CEC by former governor Mike Sonko to head the ICT department in 2017. Two years later, he became the county’s “super CEC”, overseeing nearly 10 departments before eventually landing the powerful finance docket. He was later reappointed by Governor Johnson Sakaja after he took over the reins of the county government.