Kisumu county suspends six officers over Sh1.2b scandal

By Evelyn Kwamboka

KISUMU, KENYA: Kisumu County Governor Jack Ranguma has suspended six senior city officers over alleged gross corruption and mismanagement of resources worth more than Sh1.2 billion.

His action comes following an audit report on the county’s assets and liabilities carried out by the Transition Authority in all the 47 counties that included Kisumu.

Ranguma is the first governor to act on the TA findings from an audit exercise on assets and liabilities that started on July 15. The audit was to also look at debts carried forward to the counties by the defunct local authorities abolished on March 4 as per the constitution.

The audit is aimed at providing mechanisms that will secure assets and liabilities formerly held by the councils.

The senior officers sent packing are Adrian Ouma (Engineering Department), Absalom Ayany (Planning) and Peter Kayila (IT Computer programmer). Clerical officers implicated in the scandal are Bertha Odera, Maurice Matunga and Peter Ogada.

The officers are alleged to have taken advantage of the transition period by attempting to sell over 500 houses and council estates valued at over Sh1.1 billion to private developers without following the due process.

The law required that no public assets were to be transferred during the transition period without approval of Transition Authority (TA), Treasury, Commission for Revenue Allocation, ministries of lands and Local Government in the first phase.

The second approval phase was comprised of TA, CRA, Cabinet Secretary for Intergovernmental Relations.

In the audit and inventory, TA sought help from the Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission (EACC) to investigate transfer of public assets by officials who took advantage of the transition period.

Early this year, TA Chairman Kinuthia Mwangi indicated that they will be seeking prosecution of those implicated in the illegal transfers and repossess the assets.

"Let me caution those engaged in these practices that we will go after individuals with intent to demand refund, repossess disposed properties and hold officials accountable for liabilities incurred under their watch," he said.

In a statement signed on behalf of the governor by the county's Director of Communication, Ms Merita Ombuor, Ranguma on Thursday said the audit report unearthed ‘shocking rot and corruption’ within the county.

"The audit report implicated city officers in among other things misappropriation of hundreds of shillings during the transition from local Authority to the new County Government and immediately after election when the new administration was settling in,"  he said.

The governor, who has now declared a total war on corruption in the county, said he will deal with all those officers and cartels engaged in the vice, so that the people of Kisumu can enjoy public services.

The audit report also reveals that the officers are said to have been operating an illegal strong-room with fake receipts and accounting documents in their alleged parallel accounting systems.

TA indicated in its report that it was through this parallel system that revenue collected from traders and other businesses were channeled.

In the assets audit exercise, TA also unearthed a scam on unbanked revenue worth more than Sh80 million and receipt books of over Sh52 million not entered in the council’s receipt records.

In May, deputy governor, Ms Ruth Odinga impounded fake receipts when she made an impromptu visit to some markets within the county.

The receipts had different serial numbers compared to the ones issued by the county government’s revenue office.