Assembly pushes for EACC probe on water company

The Uasin Gishu Assembly. [File, Standard]

The county assembly wants the anti-graft agency to investigate financial improprieties at a local water firm.

The assembly, through the Public Accounts Committee, wants the Eldoret Water and Sanitation Company (Eldowas) probed for not accounting for Sh33 million it received in the 2016/17 financial year. 

The assembly is in agreement with a report from the Auditor General that found Eldowas held Sh42 million as payments from its customers, while in actual sense, it was paid Sh76 million.

The assembly has now called in the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) to lead the probe.

On top of that, the committee, led by its chairperson Ramadhan Ali, took issue with Eldowas for failure to service a Sh1.8 billion loan it inherited from the defunct Eldoret Municipal Council.

The loan that was extended by the Treasury, is continuing to attract interest and penalties.

"We recommended that the matter be taken up by EACC because in our observation, the long and short term loans have not been fully disclosed," the committee observed.

While making their submissions, Eldowas management said they had had discussions with Treasury on how to restructure and reschedule the loan.

They said not much feedback had been received from Treasury to that end. 

The committee challenged them to put aside Sh7 million in readiness to pay the liabilities that have accrued once the matter is resolved with Treasury.

The 11-member committee was also in agreement with the auditor query on unexplained and un-reconciled customer deposits.