A former Homa Bay County Government employee has been ordered to refund KSh708,664 after the High Court found that she received additional salary payments that she was not entitled to.
The money was paid to Evelyne Adhiambo Ogweno between February 2015 and May 2018 while she was working for the county government. The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) went to court seeking to recover the money after investigations found that Ogweno had received multiple salary payments.
In a judgment delivered on September 18, 2026, Justice Benjamin Mwikya Musyoki ruled that the additional payments were irregular and had to be recovered by the government. Ogweno was initially employed as a registered community health nurse in 2013 before she was appointed as a nurse by the county government in January 2014. Her starting basic salary was KSh19,323, with the amount expected to rise to a maximum of KSh24,662 through annual increments.
However, court records showed that between February 2015 and May 2018, an additional KSh708,664 was deposited into her bank account. The EACC relied on bank statements and other documents to prove that the payments had been made. The Commission also presented an email in which Ogweno had agreed to repay the excess money through monthly instalments of KSh10,000.
The judge said the repayment agreement was evidence that Ogweno acknowledged receiving the additional payments. Justice Musyoki ruled that the money did not belong to Ogweno because she had neither earned it nor was she entitled to receive it as part of her salary.
The court also clarified that it was not necessary to establish whether the payments were made deliberately, fraudulently or as a result of an administrative mistake. What mattered was that government money had been paid to her without a valid entitlement.
The case also revealed problems within the county's payroll system at the time. Evidence presented before the court showed that Homa Bay County was operating two payroll systems at the same time a manual system and the Integrated Payroll and Personal Data (IPPD) system. The court found that the additional payments were linked to the manual payroll system.
EACC had sued Ogweno together with three former county payroll officials. However, the court did not find enough evidence to hold two of the officials responsible for authorising or facilitating the irregular payments.
The fourth defendant was found liable after the court established that he was involved in the manual payroll system and had not appeared in the proceedings to respond to the allegations against him.
The court therefore ordered Ogweno and the fourth defendant to jointly and severally refund the KSh708,664 to the government. The amount will also attract interest at court rates from the date the case was filed until it is fully paid.
They were further ordered to meet the costs incurred by EACC in pursuing the case.
At the same time, the court dismissed the claims against the second and third defendants because EACC had not provided enough evidence linking them to the irregular payments. The Commission was ordered to pay their legal costs.