- Tens of health facilities have stalled across the country
- Many were constructed through CDF
Image: GEORGE MURAGE
Kenya stands to lose billions of shillings due to failure by counties and political leaders to complete hundreds of projects.
According to the auditor-general Nancy Gathungu, projects worth over Sh360B have stalled in the country either due to lack of budgetary allocation or change in political leadership.
Gathungu said some of the projects had been abandoned due to political differences and change in political leadership in constituencies and county levels.
She pointed out to political leaders as the main players in the stalled projects after promising the electorate only to miss out in budgetary allocation.
“We are concerned by the rising number of stalled project whose cost stands at Sh366 billion and many might never be completed,” she said.
Speaking during a consultative meeting in Naivasha, Gathungu at the same time put counties on notice noting that some were not handing over all their financial statements as per the law.
She defended her office against accusations that it was acting on graft in the counties based on information from social media.
“We do background checks in all our investigations and we have never relied on social media to determine the way forward in graft cases,” she said.
On the multi-billion Gulana-Kulalu irrigation project, Gathungu said that they had conducted an audit on the use of funds following allegations of misappropriation.
“We have received a request from the committee of agriculture in the Senate on the irrigation scheme and we are working on this,” she said,
Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o acknowledged that graft was rife in counties despite the arrest and charging of several seniors officers including governors.
She said staffing constraints is affecting timely auditing and service delivery to the public.
“There is still graft in the counties and we are asking for more support in terms of staff so that we can scale up our services,” she said.
Nyakang’o expressed concern over the new found ‘love’ between county assemblies and the executive adding that this marred the MCA's role in oversight.
“The county assembly is supposed to supervise what the executive is doing and how it using county funds but when they become friends the oversight role gets affected,” she said.
Nyakong’o admitted that the institution keenly followed debates on social media involving graft in the counties but was quick to note that this did not sway their decisions.