Lenku queried over Sh425 million spent on 'ghost' bills

Kajiado Governor Joseph Ole Lenku was on Monday put to task over reports his administration could have spent Sh425 million to pay fake pending bills. 

Kajiado paid the money to clear part of the Sh1.19 billion debts the county had declared to have accumulated since the advent of devolution in 2013.

But the Senate Public Accounts and Investments Committee pressed the governor to explain the payments after Auditor General Edward Ouko cast doubt on the bills. 

Ouko in his 2017-18 audit report on the financial operations of the county indicated the county could neither authenticate the accumulated bills nor support the Sh425 million it paid to contractors. 

“The county has not maintained an updated individual creditors register or ledger with full details of the creditors regarding work done or services rendered, invoices, local purchase or service orders, certificates of completion, evidence of delivery and suppliers statements,” the report reads.

Committee chairman and Homa Bay Senator Moses Kajwang pressed Lenku to explain why his administration paid the money yet there was no document to prove the county incurred the costs.

“You spent Sh425,221,544 to pay pending bills whose authenticity could not be verified. A normal person will say that you pocketed this money because there is no evidence to show that you actually paid it,” he said.

The governor defended his administration, saying his officers made the payments for bills that were verified as genuine. 

“We had a total debt of Sh1,192,027,739 as at the end of 2016-17. In the following year, we paid Sh425,221,544 leaving a balance Sh766,806,193. Therefore, saying the bills were fake is not true and should be expunged,” he said.

Lenku was appearing before the committee a second time in one week to answer to the queries. Last week, the meeting was adjourned after auditors who scrutinised the county’s books failed to show up. 

But the governor found himself in an even tighter spot after it emerged that the recent special audit report showed that Kajiado county government has zero pending bills. 

“It is not true that we do not have pending bills. We will be celebrating a lie if we say we don’t have pending bills,” the governor told the committee. 

Lenku was also questioned over Sh159 million that the county government spent on domestic travel of its officers outside the Integrated Financial Management Information (Ifmis) as required in law. This raised concerns the money could have been misappropriated.

The audit report showed that only Sh87.90 million out of the Sh247.78 million spent on travel was captured in the system. 

“There was no evidence that the two sets of records were reconciled,” Ouko said in the report.

Ouko explained that variance between the Ifmis and the financial statement was caused by a delay to upload journals into the automated system. 

Edited by R.Wamochie