Wamatangi condemn rising cases of corruption in the County

Governor Kimani Wamatangi has revealed that Kiambu County is leading with cases of corruption.

Wamatangi made the revelations during the payment of pending bill exercise that was held at County headquarters and attended by suppliers and contractors as well as County leadership.

During the event, Wamatangi paid pending bills worth Sh100 million as part of an ongoing process to clear debts owed to suppliers and contractors by the county government.

He said that immediately after he assumed office, the Kiambu government owed permanent staff salary arrears (two months) and casual workers (five months) which the County has paid.

“I have so far paid bills worth Sh600 million since I assumed office, and starting next year, my administration shall be allocating Sh2billion annually to pay pending bills,” Wamatangi said.

He pointed the finger at cartels in the government who have been receiving the money to employ their friends and relatives without merit noting that a time for change has come.

He pointed out that the issue of ghost workers has become a nightmare as the County ends up paying the wage bill hitting Sh7 billion, a similar amount that the County found as pending bills.

“We will rationalize the County operation by ordering the audit of all the staff and weeding out the ghost workers who were employed without merit by the previous government."

He cited that, the road department lost about Sh800 million to cartels whiles the real amount that was to be paid was only Sh150 million.

Wamatangi further noted that the County is on the move to clean the records assuring suppliers of the government commitment to pay for legitimate supplies every after 14 days.

He said this will be made possible by the stringent measures that he (Wamatangi) has put in place to safeguard public resources, which includes austerity and taming theft.

 “I would like to take this opportunity to assure everyone here that, we will always pay for any service that we have procured and no one will be denied a chance to trade with the County but due process must be followed,” he said.

Deputy governor Rosemary Kirika expressed the government's commitment to fighting the corruption vice.

She said that the government has employed all the tactics of ensuring that services to the public are achieved.

“Corruption had taken a roll in the County and we are here to set an example that we are ready to fight it and restore the glory of Kiambu County," she said.

Kiambu County recently launched toll-free numbers to ensure that locals report the corrupt individuals siphoning government funds.

The Controller of Budget (CoB) for the 2021/2022 financial year (FY) report revealed how the previous administration led by Governor James Nyoro’s administration disregarded the law and adopted a manual payroll that is prone to abuse, exposing the devolved unit to the risk of losing public funds.

It revealed that the county government processed a total of Sh141.77 million through the manual payroll, which accounted for seven per cent of the total personal emolument (PE) costs.

 The report says the expenditure could not be authenticated as there was no trail on how the money was spent.

“During the period, a wage bill amounting to Sh864.22 million was paid through a manual payroll. The manual payroll carried 14.5 per cent of the total PE costs. The manual payroll is prone to errors and may be misused to misappropriate public funds where there is a weak internal control system,’’ the report read.

Governor Wamatangi early this week,  claimed his life is in danger after receiving threats from graft cartels in the county.

He said individuals including county employees whom he barred from dipping their hands in the county coffers have been sending him threatening messages.