Kericho Governor Paul Chepkwony was yesterday put on the spot over his administration’s move to procure fuel and oil lubricants from firms not prequalified to supply the commodity.
Appearing before the Senate County Public Accounts and Investments Committee, the governor was hard pressed to explain why his administration paid Sh6.05 million to companies it had not engaged to supply the commodity.
The questioning follows an audit report that flagged the expenditures.
“However, payments of Sh6.05 million were made to individuals and service providers not engaged in supply of fuel, oil and lubricants,” the report reads in part.
In his response, Chepkwony denied payments to the non-prequalified firms, saying the payments flagged in the report were as a result of an error in the invoicing.
“There was mis-invoicing which led to this problem. However, the anomaly did not have an effect on the financial statement at the end of the year,” he said.
The response triggered a barrage of questions with the committee members demanding to know why the anomaly was not corrected in time.
“I want to know, do you mean the county government of Kericho does not have prequalified list of suppliers?” Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei asked.
The governor, through finance executive Shadrack Mutai, said the county has a list of prequalified suppliers and insisted the problem was caused by an error in invoicing.
It took the intervention of the auditors, who scrutinised the financial books of the county, to save the county chief.
The auditors said the documents provided by the county government, albeit late, had adequately addressed the query.
This sparked yet another question, with the members of the nine-member committee demanding to know why the county officers had submitted the documents late.
“Failure to submit the audit documents in time is an offence under the law,” chairman Ochillo Ayacko (Migori) said.
The governor, through his Finance chief officer Leah Chumba, blamed bulkiness of the documents for the failure.
But Ayacko rubbished the explanation, saying the excuse does not hold water and threatened that his committee would write a report indicting the responsible officers.
The Public Audit Act provides severe penalties, including jail term, for public officers sitting on audit documents.
Chepkwony was also questioned over his administration’s failure to spend up to at least 30 per cent of the county budget on development and over expenditure on salaries and wages.
“The County government incurred expenditure of Sh1.83 billion on acquisition of assets during the year under review being 27 per cent of the total expenditure of Sh6.76 billion.”
“The development expenditure was below the legislated lower limit of 30 per cent contrary to Regulation 25(1)(g) of the Public Finance Management (County Government) Regulations, 2015,” the audit report reads.
The compensation for employees cost accounted for 37.95 per cent of the total county revenue.
This is above the 35 per cent limit set out by regulation 25(1)(b) of the Public Finance Management (County Governments) Regulations, 2015.
The governor said late disbursement of funds by the Treasury and Covid-19 pandemic affected the implementation of the projects.
He said his administration has frozen recruitments, apart from essential service providers, and is implementing staff retirement management plan to tame the growing wage bill.
-Edited by SKanyara
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