Gathungu exposes more rot in county assemblies

Auditor General Nancy Gathungu continues to expose the rot in the county assemblies in her latest audit reports tabled in Parliament.

In the 2019-20 reports, Gathungu revealed similar pattern of loopholes being exploited by the county assemblies and their MCAs in misappropriating public funds.

An analysis of the reports reveals how speakers, MCAs, clerks and staff could be pocketing millions of shillings in mileage, sitting and travel allowances for fictitious or unauthenticated trips.

In addition, the assemblies have embarked on employment sprees even as they accumulate huge pending bills.

The assemblies also lack proper asset registers, thus exposing public property, including land and high-end motor vehicles, to risk of loss.

In Wajir, the county assembly could not account for more than Sh30.27 million paid out to MCAs in allowances for questionable trips they made locally and abroad.

The amount includes Sh5.95 million paid out to the MCAs and staff for attending workshops and other official duties outside the station.

The expenditure was not supported with travel documents, invitation letters, nomination letters to the participating staff, signed expenditure schedules with details of the job groups and applicable rates of the job groups.

“The payments were not supported by training programmes initiated by the County Assembly Service Board,” the report reads.

Some Sh4.80 million was also related to payments for training abroad but the expenditure was not supported with training programmes initiated by the county assembly service board.

“No report was prepared indicating the benefits of the trainings/conferences outside the country,” she said.

Gathungu cast doubt on the authenticity of pending bills amounting to Sh248.9 million accumulated by the assembly.

Though declared by the assembly, the bills were not supported by source documents such as invoices and local purchase orders.

“In the absence of supporting documents, it was not possible to confirm the authenticity of pending bills amounting to Sh248.93 million disclosed in the financial statements,” it states.

The county assembly has employed 196 staff against the ceiling of 100.

In the neighbouring Garissa county, the assembly spent Sh12.46 million on domestic travel, subsistence and other operating expenses that were not supported.

“They were not supported by relevant documents including travel documents, invitation letters, activity programmes, nomination letters to the participating staff and attendance registers for payments of subsistence allowances,” the report reads.

The assembly, the auditor revealed, has not implemented e-procurement and was still processing its procurements manually.

This is against the executive order by the President to seal loopholes and make the transactions transparent.

The situation is the same in Vihiga county where the MCAs overshot their own budget on foreign travel and subsistence.

They spent Sh16.84 million against a budget of Sh2.96 million representing 496 per cent of the approved budget.

The amount was paid to MCAs at diverse dates during the year under review.

“However, the speaker and the clerk to the assembly were not served with a written notice indicating the destination dates of intended travel, period of absence from Kenya and contacts of members during the period of absence,” Gathungu said in the report.

In addition, the assembly could not account for Sh6.8 million paid to the clerk for domestic travel and subsistence allowance.

The expenditure was not supported with relevant documents such as signed payment schedules, invitation letters, attendance registers and approval by speaker of the county assembly.

Gathungu also flagged some Sh3.1 million paid to some staff as salary advances. The payments was in excess of the employee’s net salaries.

“Further, most of the salary advances were issued to MCAs who are not permanent staff of the organisation.

"In some instances, salary advances request forms did not reflect amount to be recovered and recovery period making the applications incomplete,” the report says.

The assembly’s pending bills stood at Sh77.53 million as at June 30, 2020.

In Isiolo, the county assembly’s pending bills stood at Sh20.96 million though the auditor cast doubt on the balance.

Gathungu fingered the assembly for making payments amounting to Sh1.5 million to the County Assembly Forum and the society of clerks without a budget for the same.

The auditor also poked holes in the assembly’s Sh473.6 million asset register.

“However, the actual register does not disclose important information on the asset such as historical cost, condition of asset, identification by user and location and the date the asset was acquired,” its shows.

In Kisii, Gathungu flagged Sh12.9 million unsupported expenditures on foreign travel and subsistence to MCAs and training expenses.

The expenditure includes Sh8.52 million paid out to MCAs for their trainings and benchmarking courses in Uganda.

“However, the training needs assessment, back to office reports, passports, boarding passes, training programme and evidence of payment to the training institutions were not provided for audit,” the report states.

Further, some Sh4.4 million was paid to a consultant for training services in Kampala, Uganda but there were not documents to authenticate the travel and the MCAs’ attendance.

Gathungu also cast doubt on the payment of Sh46.4 million on running 45 ward offices. However, the management did not provide lease agreements for the ward offices to support the lease payments.

In addition, the assembly is yet to clear pending bills amounting to Sh120.4 million.

“The management has not provided an explanation for non-payment of the pending bills. Failure to settle the bills will have a negative impact on the subsequent year’s budget allocation,” the report states.

(Edited by Bilha Makokha)