By Onesmus Nzioka

MAKUENI; KENYA: Three senior Makueni County officials have been suspended pending investigations into embezzlement of Sh286 million.

Makueni Governor Kivutha Kibwana suspended the former county clerk, a revenue officer and a senior accountant of the defunct Makueni County Council.

He said the three could not explain how they spent Sh286 million Local Authority Transfer Fund (LATF) allocated to the former council by the Ministry of Local Government to finance development projects in the 2012/13 financial year.

“This suspension is to pave way for the investigation on how a sum about Sh132 million received from LATF in the month of March was spent on projects other than the designated, and without the involvement of or information to the office of the governor or the deputy who were already in office,” read the suspension letter in part.

“Similar spending was traced to a sum of Sh154 million received in the month of October 2012.”

Prof Kibwana said the trio claimed to have spent the money on road construction and procurement of various basic county equipment but there were no entries to that effect in the account books.

He said a revenue and resources audit by the county government had revealed the said projects had been implemented to a maximum of only five per cent or less.

Encouraged corruption

“During our meeting with the officers to reconcile our financial records, we discovered that huge payments were made to individuals without specifying what kind of work they were being paid for,” he said.

He added: “There were no records of expenditure on the projects the money was purportedly spent on.”

Kibwana said the last portion of the money in question was spent within two weeks in March 2013, while the county government was already in office.

He said this was in contravention of the county government’s notice to all the former financial officers not to carry out any transactions on behalf of the county government without consulting the office of the governor.

Kibwana also accused the trio of operating a revenue collection system that encouraged corruption.

“We are aware that the former local authority under the same officers refused cheque payments and direct bank deposits and preferred cash that is susceptible to manipulations,” said the governor. He said he did not understand how the revenue collection office employed revenue collectors who did not even have secondary education. He said the revenue office requires a complete overhaul to ensure transparency.