City Hall chiefs fail to submit finance dossier

"Lack of seriousness" by the Nairobi Finance department to defend unaccounted for expenditure on Wednesday derailed the hearing of an Assembly committee.

The Public Accounts Committee, led by chairman Wilfred Odalo, had on Tuesday started investigating the Sh20 billion unaccounted for by City Hall in fiscal year 2017-2018. The expenditure was flagged by the Auditor General.

Finance executive Charles Kerich, chief officer Halkano Waqo and other officials lacked some documents for submission.

Odalo ordered them, alongside acting County Secretary Pauline Kahiga, to come prepared on Thursday next week.

Also before the committee were the county’s liquor board officials who had submitted their documents on Tuesday evening.

The Auditor General had noted that the county had not prepared financial statements for two consecutive financial years (2016-2017 and 2017-2018).

The audit highlighted that bank statement for Account No. 01141230914900 for the two financial years have not been made available for review.

Questioned were county deputy director of liquor licensing Hesbon Agwena, acting chief officer for Tourism Jairus Musumba and Julius Matekwa, the board’s accountant.

Kilimani ward rep Moses Ogeto said the documents from the board were "half-baked" and lacked financial accounting details.

"All I see are letters and we cannot cross-examine them with half-baked documents compiled and signed by one Allan Igambi who is the CEC for Trade," Ogeto said.

"Trade chief officer Fredrick Nzoiki is absent. Is this by design?" he asked.

The committee will Thursday question the Environment department over Governor Mike  Sonko’s Sh18 million beautification programme.