•The taskforce was mandated to avail a full report in 60 days, a time frame that has since expired and pressure was already pilling
•On the imprest account, the taskforce noted that the county treasury has not complied with the regulation required for the imprest account
Members of the public will have to wait a bit longer to know the details of an audit of the Siaya county financial and human resource systems.
A taskforce formed by county governor James Orengo said on Thursday that the final report will be made public on January 20, 2023.
Taskforce chairperson Edward Ouko, the former Auditor-General, addressed journalists at the governor's boardroom Thursday.
The taskforce was mandated to avail a full report in 60 days, a time frame that has since expired amid pressure to release the report.
Ouko explained that the issue of pending bills and sector-based growth as terms of reference for the job needs more time due to details that would go into it.
"We could not make it in time because there are areas that needed to investigate in depth. This is the progress report but the final report will be available on 20th (January 2023)," he said.
The chairperson said that he was compelled to come out and clear the air about their job due to speculations in the media.
Meanwhile, Ouko presented rough findings in the areas of public financial management, budget and procurement plan, retention and imprest accounts, payroll and On-Source Revenue.
On budget and planning, Ouko said that the county is largely adhering to budget making process.
However, he said that poor working relationship between the county assembly and the executive has at times curtailed the process.
"The review revealed a practice in which the assembly discusses the budget and amends it without reference to the executive. The assembly in making the changes overhauls the budget. It appears that the assembly has usurped the executive's role in the budget making process. This can be considered a material breach of the principal of separation of powers and compromises the oversight role of the assembly," Ouko said.
On the imprest account, the taskforce noted that the county treasury has not complied with the regulation required for the imprest account and that there is rampant abuse of the same.
"There are irregularities that create room for misappropriation and embezzlement of funds," Ouko read in the progress report.
Ouko stressed that they had found out that payments that "ought to have been made through IFMIS were made through imprest in the Financial Years under review (2019/2020, 2020/2021 and 2021/2022)".
The taskforce note that the county was in an upward trend in terms of revenue collection, adding that Siaya has an ability of own-sourcing upto Ksh1.7 billion in a single year.
Ouko said that Ksh 186 million was collected in the 2018/19 FY, Ksh277 million (2019/2020), Ksh336 million (2020/2021) and Ksh446 million (2021/2022).
Of the allegations that Ksh600 million was lost in 2021 and another Kah400 million in 2022, Ouko said that, yes, there are indications that huge sums of money could have been lost.
However, he said that a conclusive statement on this will come on January 23.
"There are irregular transfer of funds from various bank accounts in breach of the public finance management act," Ouko pointed out.
Some Ksh718 million was paid to various individual staff for recurrent expenditure purportedly for training activities," Ouko said.
The foregoing amount, Ouko said, probably included Ksh600 million that is said to have been lost to corruption.
Of the Ksh718 million, Ksh298 was paid from imprest account.
Of the Ksh400 million that is said to have been lost in July 2022, Ouko clarified that the actual amount was not Ksh400 million but Ksh406 million.
He clarified that, following their review, only Ksh277 million of the Ksh406 million had been paid out from the system (IFMIS).
"The correct amount is Ksh277 million, the rest are still in the system."
On payroll, the taskforce noted that the number of ghost workers could range between 110 and 140.
This, Ouko explained, was established one time when the county decided to pay employees through cheques.
"There were 110 to 141 uncollected checks," he said.
The retired Auditor General explained that the payroll had some duplicated details. Some alleged employees had ID number with even five digits instead of eight.
Also, the taskforce found out that up to 14 individuals has access to the payroll and could make changes to it.
This, the taskforce noted, curtails the operations of the County Public Service Board that is mandated to employ people.