It is the heist that everyone saw coming but no one stopped. A special audit has revealed that former MCAs and top county staff across 20 counties have defaulted on car and mortgage loans worth Sh3 billion, leaving the taxpayer with a massive hole in the books.

Most of the defaulters were voted out in 2022 and have since gone underground. "They took the cars, they took the houses, and they left the debt," said the Auditor General. The report recommends surcharging their pensions, but for many, there is nothing left to recover.