| Monday, February 23, 2026
Every month, Kenyan workers watch a mandatory 1.5 per cent slice of their wages disappear into a housing levy they were promised would build them homes.
What they were not told is that some of those billions are flowing, with remarkable speed and reliability, into the pockets of the President’s closest allies.
A recent investigation, building on government procurement records, company registry filings and contracts obtained from the State Department for Housing, has established that a web of businesspeople with deep ties to President William Ruto have collectively secured affordable housing and associated infrastructure deals worth billions of shillings since the programme launched.
The contracts span Nairobi, Naivasha and well beyond, involving individuals who helped build Ruto’s United Democratic Alliance, now hold state appointments, and in some cases personally defended the President in the turbulent political battles of his ascent to power.
The findings land at an uncomfortable moment for a government that rode to power on fiery rhetoric about ending the era of tenderpreneurs and crony capitalism.
The Levy That Built a Windfall
Since President Ruto was sworn in on September 13, 2022, his government has aggressively pursued an Affordable Housing Programme (AHP) pitched as the most transformative social initiative in Kenya’s post-independence history.
The target: one million housing units by 2027, double the figure promised by his predecessor, Uhuru Kenyatta, who never came close to delivering on his own pledge.
By his own 2025 State of the Nation Address, Dr Ruto claimed his administration had delivered the most extensive housing rollout in Kenya’s history, with 230,000 affordable homes either complete or under construction and over 428,000 jobs created.
The programme is funded by the controversial 1.5 per cent Housing Levy deducted directly from the gross pay of every formal-sector worker in Kenya.
The levy earns the government approximately Sh73.2 billion every financial year since its implementation began in July 2023. President Ruto has since disclosed that contracts worth Sh600 billion have been signed under the programme. But a critical question has received scant public attention: who, exactly, is being paid?
Wambui’s Web
At the centre of the storm is Mary Wambui Mungai, the Chairperson of the Athi Water Works Development Agency and arguably Kenya’s most well-connected businesswoman. Her trajectory over the past three years reads like a masterclass in political proximity converted into procurement gold.
Nightingale (E.A.) Limited, a firm linked to associates of Ms Wambui, has been awarded a tender worth Sh4.78 billion to construct 2,956 low-cost houses under the Proposed Mathare II Social Housing Project in Nairobi.
The project, sitting on eight acres in one of the capital’s most densely populated constituencies, will also feature a clubhouse, commercial stalls, a kindergarten and associated road infrastructure.
Company records at the Business Registration Service tell the story of a careful restructuring. Ms Wambui was previously a director and shareholder of Nightingale (E.A.) Limited but resigned on December 5, 2022, after being appointed by President Ruto as Chairperson of the Communications Authority of Kenya. She transferred her shares and directorship to her daughter, Everlyne Nyambura, who also resigned in June 2023.
Critics argue the timing is no coincidence. Investigations revealed that Wambui transferred her shares in Nightingale to her daughter, Evelyn Nyambura Mungai, shortly before the tender awards. Critics argue this move was an attempt to avoid conflict-of-interest allegations during her tenure at the Communications Authority, which oversees the ICT sector.
The affordable housing contract is, however, just the latest chapter in a sprawling procurement story. Earlier, through Purma Holdings and Nightingale Enterprises, Ms Wambui and her family bagged several government contracts that have landed them a seat at the table of wealthy Kenyans. Her firms are linked to Sh1.32 billion for the Kandara Water Supply project, a Sh163.8 million stadium upgrade in Kiambu, and contracts to lay fibre optic cables worth billions under the government’s Digital Superhighway project.
At the time the latter was awarded, Ms Wambui was Chairperson of the Communications Authority, which operates under the same ministry as the procurement entity, the ICT Authority.
The Consumers Federation of Kenya (Cofek) filed a petition alleging that the Communications Authority violated constitutional principles on integrity and leadership by awarding contracts to entities linked to Wambui, the board chair of the authority. The case is ongoing.
When reporters sought comment from Ms Wambui on the Sh4.78 billion housing contract, her lawyers at M&E Advocates LLP fired back, calling any intended article “false and entirely devoid of any factual foundation” and threatening legal action.
The Governor’s Husband Who Builds in Her County
If the Wambui story raises questions about the line between private business and public board appointments, the case of Sam Mburu exposes an even rawer conflict.
Mr Mburu is the husband of Nakuru Governor Susan Kihika. He is also a Nakuru businessman and a close ally of the President. And he has now been contracted by the national government to build affordable housing inside his wife’s county of jurisdiction.
In July 2025, Mr Mburu entered into an agreement with the State Department for Housing and Urban Development to construct 1,215 housing units under the Buffalo Phase 1 project in Naivasha, valued at Sh2.58 billion.
He signed the contract as the sole shareholder of Landmark Freight Services.
The Buffalo Mall-Naivasha Affordable Housing project sits along the Nairobi-Nakuru Highway, a corridor that falls squarely within the administrative boundaries governed by Mr Mburu’s wife. The project was, in any case, already mired in legal controversy.
The Environment and Lands Court in Naivasha suspended construction of over 1,000 housing units on the site, after a petition argued it was built on land donated by the Delamere family in 1996 specifically for a stadium.
Justice Mary Oundo stopped any construction pending the hearing and determination of the petition.
Mr Mburu did not respond to questions on whether building the project in Nakuru constitutes a conflict of interest given that his wife governs the county.
The Deported Turk Who Came Back
Perhaps the most extraordinary figure in the affordable housing ecosystem is Harun Aydin, a Turkish national who was deported from Kenya in 2021 under circumstances that directly embroiled then-Deputy President Ruto in a furious public confrontation with the Interior Ministry under Fred Matiang’i.
Matiang’i told Parliament that an analysis of Aydin’s frequent movements into and out of Kenya indicated that he had close links with foreigners involved in money-laundering. Aydin had applied for an investor’s work permit, but was found to have presented a dummy contract claiming approval to work in the energy sector.
Ruto, then Deputy President, was categorical in his defence of the Turkish businessman. He publicly described Aydin as a victim of top-down arrogance and claimed to have personally helped him seek a multi-billion-shilling loan from Equity Bank. Equity Bank flatly denied any such relationship existed.
Four years later, Aydin’s firm MHOA Africa Limited holds a place within Kenya’s biggest social spending programme.
Official company ownership records show that Aydin owns a 50 per cent stake in MHOA Africa, which is in a joint venture with Demir Group.
The company was registered in March 2023, months after Ruto was declared the winner of the fiercely contested 2022 presidential election. The joint venture has been pre-qualified to build over 100,000 homes under Category A of the affordable housing programme, though the housing department has maintained that formal tender awards are yet to be confirmed.
With only a fraction of the Sh600 billion in signed contracts appearing on the public procurement portal, verifying those assurances has proven impossible.
The Roads Man Who Wins Market Deals
Anthony Mwaura, Chairperson of the Kenya Rural Roads Authority, presents a somewhat different case, though the pattern is consistent. His firm, Toddy Civil Engineering, has not secured a direct affordable housing contract.
It has, however, clinched a Sh49.3 million deal to construct Dagoretti Market for the Kiambu County Government, with the national government separately funding an access road to the same market using Housing Levy money.
President Ruto himself acknowledged that housing levy funds are being used beyond their original purpose, including to build markets across the country.
“We are not only using that housing levy to build affordable housing, we are using it to build markets,” the President said, revealing 260 markets are currently underway.
The Chief Executive of the Affordable Housing Board, Sheila Waweru, has defended this approach, arguing the law does not restrict the board to using levy funds only for housing-specific social infrastructure.
Mwaura’s firm has additionally secured a Sh736.9 million contract for Mumbi Stadium in Kiambu and a Sh151.72 million tender for the Kipini fish landing site under the current administration.
When Dr Ruto first took power, both Mwaura and Wambui were rewarded with prestigious state appointments. Mwaura became Chairperson of the Kenya Revenue Authority before a High Court revoked the appointment, after which he was installed at the Kenya Rural Roads Authority. Wambui moved from the Communications Authority to the Athi Water Works Development Agency in a direct swap in August 2025.
“Unmistakably Suspicious”
Governance and public finance experts are growing increasingly alarmed at the pattern emerging from Kenya’s single largest ongoing capital expenditure programme.
“The award of these tenders to close allies of the President is unmistakably suspicious,” John Mutua, the Public Finance Management Lead at the Institute of Economic Affairs, said. “That is why the procurement portal is important. At least from the portal, you can trace whether the tendering process is competitive before getting into the issue of conflict of interest.”
Yet transparency remains elusive. The Auditor-General has separately flagged that the government cannot trace a Sh20 billion affordable housing loan, with records showing disbursements were made to the Kenya Mortgage Refinancing Company for on-lending but repayment records have not been provided.
Courts have also begun striking at individual projects. An Environment and Lands Court suspended the Lang’ata affordable housing project, which was launched in March 2025 and projected to deliver 15,000 units, after a petition by Senator Okiya Omtatah argued the project sits on land historically reserved as a road and railway corridor and an environmental buffer zone, and that proper public participation was not conducted.
The Architecture of Access
What the procurement records collectively reveal is not a single corrupt transaction but an architecture of access. Companies tied to the President’s closest allies win contracts across sectors: housing, ICT infrastructure, food imports, stadiums, markets, fish landing sites, water supply. The same names recur. The same patterns of share transfers, board resignations and corporate restructuring appear each time public scrutiny intensifies.
The government, for its part, insists procurement has been competitive and above board. The Communications Authority and the Solicitor-General went to court to defend the awards linked to Wambui. The housing department maintains Aydin’s firm has merely been pre-qualified.
But Kenyans contributing Sh73.2 billion every year to the Housing Levy are entitled to ask a more uncomfortable question: if the programme is about providing shelter to the poor, why does the money so reliably find its way to those who are already very close to power?
