- Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja and his predecessors; Evans Kidero, Mike Sonko and Anne Kananu are set to face Senators over spending of more than Sh2 billion by the county’s liquor licensing agency.
- The Senate County Public Investment and Special Funds Committee (CPIC) has ordered the appearance of the current and former county bosses to explain how the millions were spent.
Image: NCCG
Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja and his predecessors; Evans Kidero, Mike Sonko and Anne Kananu are set to face senators over spending more than Sh2 billion by the county’s liquor licensing agency.
The Senate County Public Investment and Special Funds Committee has ordered the appearance of the current and former county bosses to explain how the millions were spent.
“We are going to invite all the former governors, because these audit queries were raised from 2014,” committee chairman Godfrey Osotsi said.
The development comes even as the panel wrote to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission to state the status of the probe into the alleged misuse of funds at the agency.
The committee is investigating millions collected and spent by the Nairobi Alcoholic Drinks Control and Licensing Board.
The board has collected Sh200 million every year from licensing of liquor joints. Since 2014, the board has generated approximately Sh2 billion.
During the meeting on Wednesday, it emerged that the Nairobi County Assembly, which had been probing the alleged misuse and embezzlement of funds at the board, was unable to complete its work due to lack of documents.
This was after the county executive and the board failed to provide documents to establish how the funds generated was used.
The MCAs wrote to the EACC to probe how the millions generated by the board was spent.
The probe was triggered by the damning audit reports by auditor general since 2014.
The auditor has rendered disclaimer of opinion in all the financial years, implying that the board’s financial records were too jumbled for the auditor to make sense out of them.
“I have not been able to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence to provide a basis for an audit opinion on these financial statements,” one of the audit reports states.
The committee made the pronouncement after Sakaja admitted massive financial rot at the agency between 2014 and 2022.
“If the auditor cannot make sense of these financial records, then it simply means that this money was stolen. These former governors must come and explain,” Narok Senator Ledama Olekina said.
“These issues are indefensible,” Sakaja said when he appeared before the committee on Wednesday.
Sakaja appeared before the committee for the second time in as many months to attempt to respond to the queries.
Sakaja said he had retained some two officers who worked at the board during the fiscal years, which the committee can use as witnesses in their probe.
On Wednesday, Osotsi said that some of the documents presented by the county government to authenticate the expenditures appeared ‘cooked.’
“A quick look at these documents shows that some of them are generated as late as August, 2022, yet we are talking of financial years up-to June 2022,” Osotsi said.
Osotsi said he invoked Article 125 of the constitution that allows Parliament and its committee to invite or summon anyone to appear before it to give information or evidence.
In one of the audit reports for the year ended June, 2021, the auditor stated the board had not submitted financial statements for the year 2014/2015, 2015/2016, 2016/2017, 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 for audit.
“This was contrary to Section 47(1) of the Public Audit Act, 2015 which states that the financial statements required under the constitution, the Public Finance Management Act, 2012 and any other legislation,” the report reads.
In the report, the auditor queries irregular payments amounting Sh294.32 million, irregular procurement of goods worth Sh55.40 million and irregular payment of allowances amounting to Sh140.95 million.