Kajiado Governor Ole Lenku blames audit queries on former top officials

Kajiado Governor Joseph ole Lenku has blamed former Finance Department officials for failing to cooperate with auditors.

The Senate's County Public Accounts and Investment committee yesterday put Lenku to task to explain why officials did not avail crucial documents for audit.

"We cannot understand why these documents were not availed at the right time, yet they seem to have been in order. You were let down by your officers. In fact do you know that an elephant is brought down by very small things," said the committee chairman Ochillo Ayako (Migori).

Lenku, however, said he has since sent home some of the officials and reshuffled others. "I was forced to take administrative action against the former Finance  Executive Alais Kisota and Chief Finance Officer Sankaire Tima for errors of omission and poor engagement with the county's external stakeholders," he said.

The governor then appointed Michael Semera, a former manager at Equity Bank, and Lekina Tutui.

In the 2018/2019 report, the Auditor General also questioned why pending bills had shot up from Sh766 million to Sh1.3 billion.