• Senator Kajwang’ said there is no way an overstatement of pending bills by Sh205 million can be left to go unpunished.
• The county boss was also taken to task over more than Sh1 billion worth of stalled projects in the county government.
Image: EZEKIEL AMING'A
Bomet Governor Hillary Barchok was on Tuesday at pains to explain how his administration inflated the county’s pending bills by more than Sh200 million.
The second-term county boss was also taken to task over more than Sh1 billion worth of stalled projects in the county government.
In addition, the governor was questioned over irregular engagement of casual employees to the tune of Sh53 million.
The county failed to account for the payments as it did not provide payment schedules and vouchers to support the expenditure.
The developments emerged during the questioning of the governor over audit queries for the financial year ending June 2021.
He appeared before the Senate County Public Accounts Committee chaired by Homa Bay Senator Moses Kajwang'.
In the report by Auditor General Nancy Gathungu, the county government had declared its pending bills as Sh842.39 million as at June 2021.
However, it could support outstanding bills worth only Sh637.43 million, resulting in unreconciled and unexplained variances of Sh204.95 million.
The report flagged Sh261.86 million which was not supported by documents such as invoices, certificates of completion and purchase orders.
Barchok was at pains to explain how the Sh842.39 million figure was arrived at.
The governor blamed ‘false claims and manufactured documents’ to be behind the overstated figure, saying they are currently verifying the claims.
The county finance executive Andrew Sigei, however, defended the figure, saying it is not inflated as “to the best of his knowledge and ability, that is the county’s pending bills”.
Finance chief officer Erick Chepkwony said the variance is as a result of pending commitments worth Sh201 million that had not been captured in the audit response.
“The true position is that the pending bills are Sh637.4 million. We made an amendment to the statement to exclude the pending commitments,” Chepkwony said.
“In many cases, such gross exaggeration of pending bills is deliberate and cannot be taken as an arithmetic error,” Kajwang’ said.
However, Senator Kajwang’ said there is no way an overstatement of pending bills by Sh205 million can be left to go unpunished.
He said there must be some sanctions for individuals involved in the mess, either by their professional body or relevant investigating agencies.
“These are things that make you look bad and people start thinking of you as a thief. Article 10 of the Constitution is very clear on the accuracy of documents,” Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah added.
The governor was also taken to task over stalled projects worth more than Sh1 billion, with Sh532 million Chebang’ang water supply project and Sh257.4 million Bomet Stadium sticking out.
The Chebang’ang project was a joint-venture between the county government and the Kenya Red Cross Society signed in 2018 for a period of five years.
However, even after the county spending Sh96 million in the project, physical inspection conducted in November 2021 revealed that the project was yet to be completed. The works that had been started at the intake of the water supply had stalled and the contractor had abandoned the site.
Further, the report said the memorandum of understanding, tender documents, contract documents and expenditure summaries were not provided for audit.
The governor struggled to even point to the committee how much his administration had pumped into the project as the records were shambolic but told the committee that Sh96 million had been spent after minutes of searching.
“You cannot appear lost in your own documents. It is not the work of this committee to help you go through your own documents. We seem to be more familiar with the documents than their owners,” Kajwang’ said.
“Sh500 million is a lot of money and we need a deeper audit to know how much has been pumped into the project to know if the law has been followed,” he added.
Regarding the stalled construction of Bomet Stadium, Gathungu fingered the county for spending Sh14 million on a project that was being put up on a land belonging to Bomet University College and not the county.
The report states that the county entered into a contract with a local company in 2018 for the construction of the stadium for three years starting June 29, 2018.
However, as of June 30, 2021, only 4.5 per cent of the work had been done, with at least Sh14 million paid to the contractor before the court stopped the works over the disputed land.
The committee pressed the governor on his plans to ensure Bomet people get value for money already spent. The county boss said they have bought land elsewhere for a new stadium.
“This is a project that has consumed public resources and is now condemned. How will we justify the resources that have gone into this project which we know will not proceed beyond where it is now?” Bomet Senator Hillary Sigei posed.
“By your action of buying land elsewhere to build another stadium, you have abandoned the project. Just be honest,” Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna said.