State House disowns Waititu over Sh973m spending

In Summary

• Governor Ferdinand Waititu has come under fire for a Sh2.5 billion expenditure that caused the Senate order a special audit.

• Among the queried expenses are Sh902 million spent on coordination of State House Functions.

Kiambu Governor Ferdinand Waititu
Kiambu Governor Ferdinand Waititu
Image: FILE

State House has disowned Kiambu county's purported Sh973 million expenditure on "coordination of State House functions".

In a tweet, Nzioka Waita, the chief of staff in the Office of The President,  wrote, "Just for the record , @StateHouseKenya does not share any budgets with the County Government of Kiambu."

Governor Ferdinand Waititu has come under fire for a Sh2.5 billion expenditure that caused the Senate to order a special audit.

The governor was today hard-pressed to explain the  expenditure in 2017-18 financial year.

Among the queried expenses are Sh902 million spent on coordination of State House Functions. The vote had been allocated Sh973.9 million during the year.

According to the County’s financial statements presented to the Senate by Waitutu’s government, Kiambu spent all the Sh180.5 million set aside for administration of statutory benefits for retired presidents.

 State Corporations Advisory Services gobbled up Sh591.6 million set aside in the county’s 2017-18 financial year for the budget line.

The Kiambu government also spent some Sh793 million on Free Primary Education. The vote, despite being a National Government function had been allocated a whopping Sh804 million during the year.

In the allocations that puzzled the Senators, Kiambu spent Sh58 million on Kenya-South Sudan Advisory Services.

The allocations and expenditures were flagged out by the Senate County Public Accounts and Investments Committee chairman Moses Kajwang.

The governor said he was unaware of the allocations and insinuated that the allocation could have been ‘sneaked’ into the bulky documents.

“What I have seen is also news to me. Nobody could have assumed we could have such allocations in our budget,” he said.

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