•According to the report, Machakos county exceeded its budget for frontline health workers allowances by Sh4.54 million
• There was no budgetary provision for the excess payment.
Image: COURTESY
Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua had a rough time before senators on Monday, when he was put to task to explain how Sh425.35 million Covid-19 funds were used.
Mutua was at pains to explain why his administration made several double payments of allowances, paid medical allowances to non-medical staff and made payments for items that were never delivered.
He was also questioned on the payment of allowances to national government workers and failure to notify Covid-19 tender bidders of the outcomes of the process.
The governor appeared before the Senate Health Committee to answer audit queries by Auditor General Nancy Gathungu in her special report on the use of the Covid-19 funds by the county governments.
The Health committee chaired by Trans Nzoia Senator Michael Mbito is investigating the irregularities committed by the counties in the spending of the funds as flagged by the Auditor General.
The audit report says Machakos exceeded its budget for frontline health workers allowances by Sh4.54 million. There was no budgetary provision for the excess payment.
“The appropriated amount for the frontline health workers was Sh97.56 million. However, a total payment of Sh102.10 million was made, thereby leading to a variance of Sh4.45 million on the appropriated amount,” the report says.
The cash was a grant from the national government.
In addition, the county made double payment of allowances to four members of staff amounting to Sh120,000.
Machakos used the cash meant for allowances for health workers to pay the chief driver and other support staff.
Double payments were also made to ward administrators and the national government Covid-19 team, including chiefs and police officers.
Mutua, who appeared virtually, told the nine-member Senate team that the excess Sh4.5 million was charged from the county's own resources.
“The grant from the national government did not cater for the allowances of the support staff like the mortuary attendants, who, too, were qualified to get the allowances. So, we had to use our own money,” Mutua said.
The governor was flanked by Deputy Governor Francis Maliti and top county officials.
Mutua's response appeared to satisfy the committee but Mbito demanded full disclosure, including a budget to authenticate the claims.
Concerning the double payment of four staff members, the governor admitted the occurrence but blamed it on ‘bank system errors.’
“However, the county has fully recovered the funds through the payroll from the officers. The staff payslips are available for audit,” Mutua said.
On payments of allowances to national government staff, the county governor explained that the county and the national governments had formed a joint team to combat the contagion.
He said the double payments resulted from documentation mix-up from the county commissioner.
Kisii Senator Sam Ongeri sought to know whether the double payments were detected by auditors or had already been detected by the county and corrective measures taken.
Mutua said the county detected the errors.
Machakos paid Sh62.72 million to Jambostar Properties Limited for the supply of critical care equipment, despite not delivering 15 dressing tables worth Sh825,000.
Mutua admitted that at the time of the audit, the tables had not been received but attributed the problem to stock-out challenges.
“The 15 dressing tables worth Sh825,000 have since been delivered as indicated by the delivery note and Inspection and Acceptance Note by the bidder."
He said the dressing tables had initially been delivered but were taken back for readjustments as they were not of the required heights.
The governor was also asked to justify why his administration never notified bidders of the outcome of the bidding process.
He said the county carried out e-procurement as required and that all bidders were notified of the bidding outcome through their respective e-mail addresses.
“Over and above this, the department wrote manual regret letters to the unsuccessful bidders and copies were kept in a separate file. No complaint was received from the bidders meaning that they were satisfied,” Mutua said.
Senators Ledama Olekina (Narok), Abdullahi Ali (Wajir), Millicent Omanga (Jubilee, nominated) and Beth Mugo (Jubilee, nominated) asked Mutua to provide print-outs of the emails.
Edited by P.O