An audit report has unearthed misuse of public funds, serious capacity gaps and how undeserving allowances were paid to senior county officials while not on duty.
The report on pending bills presented to Governor Granton Samboja last week gave an example of a senior county official who was admitted to a hospital in Mombasa but was paid night out allowances.
It also observed, in many instances, the display of lack of integrity on the part of senior officers in carrying out their duties.
This was highly-pronounced on paying of allowances, said the taskforce committee report.
For example, it was noted that an officer did not attend a meeting as indicated in the attendance list, but was included in the payment request.
In other cases, an officer was found to have attended a fully-funded seminar, but after reporting back on duty claimed full night outs and transport allowances, which were cleared for payments.
In addition, the probe noted that works were cleared for payments despite glaring anomalies.
The report, seen by The Standard, observed abnormal delay in approving payment requests for junior staff by their seniors despite the little amount involved until the financial year is over, thus pilling unnecessary bills.
“This raises integrity issues on accounting officers, especially given that there are reported cases where approval leads to subject benefiting from the claim,” the report revealed.
The committee, chaired by a Mombasa-based accountant Leonard Kalama, verified vouchers and receipts from the previous county administration.
The committee interacted with officers who came before it and through documentary evidence and review.
The Kalama-led committee said there were serious capacity gaps in some areas where officers had been assigned duties.
"A few officers displayed lack of understanding of their roles and ability to articulate issues befitting their levels as is expected of them. This capacity gap is no doubt hampering efficient and effective service delivery in the county," notes the report.
In a number of cases during discussion with various officers on projects management in their departments, the county staff cited political interference as a reason why bills were pending.
It was explained that whereas departments would like to complete ongoing projects, politicians would propose new ones, thus creating pending bills, noted the report.
The committee report showed how the county had spread itself so thin on the ground in terms of project implementation, such that at the end of the day no impact was felt at the grassroots.
Cross purposes
In many cases the departments were found to be working at cross-purposes thus failing to optimally utilise the scarce resources.
The committee noted that there was poor supervision of juniors by seniors.
This was evident in the fact that an officer would not be abreast on what their juniors had done in some cases, thus displaying ignorance on matters under their dockets.
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