Auditor General Exposes another Sh552 Million Fraud

Auditor General financial audit report of the year ending on June 30, 2019, the administration in Kiambu County is in charge of suspected improper spending of more than half a billion shillings.

“Management did not provide any explanation for the failure to present the records for audit. Consequently, the accuracy, completeness, and validity of expenditures totaling Sh551,819,258 could not be confirmed,” the auditor said.

However, the county executive defended itself, saying, vouchers amounting to Sh171 million and another Sh223 million are with the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC).

“Therefore, out of the balance of Sh157.6 million, only vouchers worth Sh19.3 million have been retrieved and are available for audit. Subsequently, we do agree with the auditor’s observation to the extent that the balance of Sh138.3 million could not be accounted for and therefore we have written to the then accounting officer to explain the anomaly,” the county said in its response.

Simultaneously, the county executive was accused of giving Sh235.5 million in imprest to five county officers for unspecified objectives. This is after the county executive spent the funds without documenting them in the imprests register. It is also alleged that payments were removed from the final list of outstanding imprests. Although the county executive said that the funds were used for operational purposes, data on the actual spending items were not made available for audit.

“Further, contrary to the provisions of Regulation 93(4) of the Public Finance Management (County Governments) Regulations, 2015, the recipients were issued with multiple imprests, some on the same day, even though they had not accounted for previous ones,” read part of the audit report.

The county government admitted to the anomaly, saying, it has commenced disciplinary processes against the officers still under the county public service.

“For officers who are not with the county public service, we have written letters to notify them to account for the funds,” said the county in its response.

Furthermore, the trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico, was apparently extended to August 6, 2018 in order to accommodate numerous meetings with possible investors, according to the documents. The National Governors Association’s 2018 summer summit was scheduled to take place from July 18 to July 22.

However, records, including air tickets, indicated that the delegation traveled to various states and cities, including Detroit, but not Santa Fe, the cited venue of the meeting. No explanation was given for the anomaly nor was there evidence confirming whether the delegation held meetings with investors as had been purported.

On the China trip, the Auditor-General revealed that Sh1.5 million was paid to a travel services provider for air tickets for the governor and county staff in September 2018. The firm’s services were procured through single-sourcing contrary to procurement regulations.

On the 10-day visit to Slovakia, Sh2.8 million was spent in January 2019 but the county did not produce supporting documents.