Nyeri County blames audit queries on Ifmis ‘error’

Nyeri County Executive for Finance Robert Thuo. He issued a statement saying the discrepancies were due to Ifmis errors. [File, Standard]

The County is blaming errors within the Integrated Financial Management Information System (Ifmis) for budgetary discrepancies reported by the Auditor General.

In the financial year ended June 2018, Auditor General Edward Ouko noted that the county undertook expenditure amounting to Sh5.4 billion according to Ifmis.

However, according to actual financial statements presented by the county, the expenditure was Sh6.3 billion.

The discrepancies led the Auditor General to declare the information the county provided for audit limited in scope, as proper accounting rules were not followed when the statements were prepared.

County Executive for Finance Robert Thuo issued a statement saying the discrepancies were due to Ifmis errors.

Based on the Auditor General’s report, Ifmis did not report Sh70 million proceeds from domestic and foreign grants received by the county.

Resource wastage

The county also received Sh620 million as transfers from other State agencies. But Ifmis reported that the actual amount received from these agencies was Sh472 million.

The discrepancies have caused Senator Ephraim Maina to call for the investigation of the County Government over what he termed wastage of resources.

Mr Thuo said proceeds from domestic and foreign grants comprised of donations from Danish International Development Agency, the Kenya Devolution Support Programme and Universal Health Coverage, which were not captured by Ifmis, but were captured as transfers from other Government entities.

“The variances in the county financial statements compared to Ifmis reports are due to the fact that financial statements are prepared manually using bank balances,” Thuo noted, adding: “They are obtained after the bank reconciliation of cash books and statements.”

Ouko also raised concerns on revenue collected by the county, noting that the Executive failed to meet revenue targets despite reviewing them downwards.

13 revenue streams

“Out of 57 revenue streams, the county missed its revenue target in 44 streams. It only managed to surpass the target in 13 revenue streams. This is an indication of leakages and inadequate control measures,” Ouko noted in his report.

Nyeri County collected Sh760 million out of a target of Sh1 billion in revenue.

Thuo insisted the county statements could be confirmed by another analysis from a third party, such as the Controller of budget.

“The figures in the Ifmis report are wrong and cannot be relied on due to the fact that the revenue model of Ifmis has not been proved to be 100 per cent accurate,” Thuo said.