The World Bank has faulted Senior Counsel Ahmednasir Abdullahi following his claims on X (formerly Twitter) that the multilateral lender is about to finance a corruption-saddled project in Kenya's Judiciary.

On Thursday this week, Ahmednasir, who is a popular commentator of national issues, dragged the Bretton Woods institution into the world of opaque procurement undertakings in public institutions in Kenya, stating that the multilateral lender is about to disburse KES17 billion to the Judiciary for the construction of a court and toilets for the seven judges of the Supreme Court.

However, the World Bank has countered that it is not engaged in such financing agreement with the Judiciary. "The World Bank has not received an official request from the Government of Kenya (National Treasury) to support Kenya’s Judiciary. The only engagement the World Bank currently has with the Judiciary is a Justice assessment known as the "Justice Pillars Towards Evidence-based Reform" (JUPITER)."

The lender added that JUPITER is a country-based assessment, which is designed to measure the effectiveness of a country’s judiciary in three parameters, including access to justice, efficiency, and quality.

"We previously supported the Judicial Performance Improvement Project (JPIP)-P105269 from Nov 2012 to Oct 31, 2021, when the project closed," the World Bank added.

While warning that a scandal is brewing in the Judiciary, Ahmednasir claimed that the "Office of the Chief Justice has sidelined the Judicial Service Commission, which is the principal organ constitutional charged with the mandate to make important decisions for the judiciary and has monopolized the project. The project is being handled with great secrecy and with zero transparency and nil public participation."

"I will formally write to the President of World Bank Mr. Ajay Banga to protest the priorities of the bank when it comes to Kenya. This nonsense of spending 17 billion to build a court is unacceptable and must stop."

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