Audit report shows rot governor Nyoro team's left for Wamatangi

The Auditor General has raised multiple queries on the Kiambu County spending for the 2020/21 financial year.

In her report dated June 30, 2022 tabled before the Senate's Public Accounts Committee at the end of last year, Nancy Gathungu notes that an audit of the county finances and spending had revealed gaps in retention of own, hiring of staff, accuracy of pending bills and spending without a budget for its six municipalities at Kiambu, Ruiru, Karuri, Kikuyu, Limuru and Thika.

Ms Gathungu reported that the county then headed by governor James Nyoro declared own generated revenue of Sh2.392 billion for the year, but on sampling six sub counties, a variance of Sh16,508,098 million was noted between cashbook entries and revenue returns.

The own generated income included property income of Sh292,531,794. But a review of the system showed incomplete details for 1,244 lease plots and 4,992 others without corresponding block numbers.

While Ruiru sub county revenue summaries were not provided for verification, the OAG reported that a perusal of the county revenue revealed a total of over Sh360 million was collected in the sub county compared to Sh220 million in the cashbook - a variance of Sh139,445,982.

"In the circumstance, the accuracy of county own generated receipts of Sh2,392,973,847 cannot be confirmed," Ms Gathungu concluded.

She also questioned the accuracy of the figure of Sh141,274,466 reported by the county as revenue retained at source.

The OAG reported that the county gave a figure of Sh5.747 billion as pending bills as at June 30, 2021 but noted that some over Sh218 million of the sampled bills were not supported by payment vouchers or documentation for audit verification meaning they were questionable.

The county paid its 7,216 employees a total of Sh6,782,828,838 including Sh299.079,462 million paid to temporary employees. The OAG reported some four anomalies were discovered in respect of paying the temporary workers.

Those include some Sh17.5 million not supported by any documentation, some manual adjustments on dates amounting to Sh57 million, double payments totaling over Sh11 million and some Sh13.7 million payments on payroll not attributed to contractual employees.

"The amount is 10 per cent higher than the recommended maximum threshold of 35 per cent a stipulated under Section 25 (1) (b) of the Public Finance Management (County Governments) Regulations 2015," reported Ms Gathungu.

She also reported that almost half (some 3,234 of the 7,216) of the county employees were paid a net salary less than a third of their basic pay against the legal provisions.

It had also paid 835 employees in the medical field some Sh92 million emergency call allowance exceeding the limits set by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC).

For a county with some of the biggest penetration of banking services, the OAG noted that salaries of 5,664 employees were processed through automated system but some Sh555,494,447 for the rest was processed manually and no explanation was provided and some 16 employees lacked Personal Numbers and Tax PINS.

"In the circumstances the management breached the law," concluded Ms Gathungu.

The OAG reported that county documentation showed casuals and reliever staff were paid Sh28.1 million by the county but four anomalies were noted.

Those included failure to involve the County Public Service Board (CPSB) in the hiring, failure to keep work reports for the staff, unexplained details of how they were identified and failure to provide justifications for the shortages that necessitated the hiring.

The auditor noted that the County Executive transferred some Sh1.9 billion to the six municipal boards which had been duly established and complete with their respective boards by 2019.

"Three years after the municipalities were established, no evidence was given to show that the Boards and Managers were preparing and submitting budget estimates to the County Treasury for consideration by the County Assembly," Ms Gathungu reported.

Her report comes at a time when governor Kimani Wamatangi is grappling to clear Sh7 billion pending bills. On December 21, Wamatangi paid pending bills worth Sh100 million as part of the process to clear debts owed to contractors and suppliers.

The Wamatangi government has cumulatively cleared Sh600 million in debts since he was elected in addition to two months salary arrears owed to permanent staff and five months of arrears owed to casual workers.