Gathungu flags wanton spending among counties

Various county assemblies spend millions of shillings on non-priority projects such as MCAs’ domestic and foreign travel, a new report shows.

 The report from Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu points at county assemblies for failing to provide supporting travel documents and events attended to confirm authenticity of the said expenditure.

 Reads the report: “Lack of action and sanctions has led to fiscal indiscipline including misallocations, wastage of resources, lack of value for money in the implementation of projects and loss of public funds, thereby impacting negatively on development programmes. This in turn threatens economic growth and service delivery sustainability.”

The report for the financial year 2022/2023 also points at the county assemblies for spending millions to pay lawyers to represent them in court, for having stalled or incomplete projects despite millions being sunk in them as well as failing to adhere to various human resource management requirements.

Among the issues raised include non-compliance with the one third of basic salary rule, non-compliance with ethnic diversity, non-compliance with fiscal responsibility on wage bill, failure to remit statutory deductions, over-commitment of salaries as well as paying salaries through the manual system.

 For instance, at the Taita Taveta county assembly, documents revealed expenditure on domestic and foreign travel of Sh12.9 million and Sh17.5 million all totalling to Sh30 million which was not supported with evidence of ratification of the board’s transport allowances by Salaries Remuneration Commission (SRC), competitive selection of the training facilities and user departments’ requests.

 The assembly also has an expenditure of Sh8 million incurred by the MCAs on a pre-conference, leadership training and study tour in Zanzibar for a period of six days.

Review of records revealed there was an additional expenditure amounting to Sh9.1 million that was incurred in respect to registration of members, administration, conference charges, coordination and training costs.

 Out of the 25 MCAs facilitated for the travel, four members did not travel to Zanzibar despite having been paid the allowances amounting to 1.1 million yet the management did not provide evidence of the subsequent refund of the amounts paid to the participants who did not travel after a request for their fund was done.

 The documents further show that the participants were eligible for five days per diem but had been paid for six days resulting in one extra day overpayment to each of the participants.

 Gathungu noted that although available information indicated that the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) had carried out investigations on the matter and sent demand letters requiring the delegates to refund the extra payments made to the Commission’s bank account, the Management did not provide any confirmation that the refund was done as per the Commission’s demand letters.

 Reads the report: “In the circumstances, the accuracy and completeness of expenditure amounting to Kshs.42,479,725 could not be confirmed.

 The Garissa county assembly, the report shows, has unsupported domestic travel and subsistence expenses of Sh5.8 million that was paid to officers who attended workshops, training and other official duties outside Garissa county.

However, payments were not supported with invitation letters, pre-travel approval by the management, training programs for the training attended and workshop attendance registers.

The Wajir county assembly on the other hand has been highlighted for over Sh70 million in respect of mileage claims by members of County Assembly (MCAs), and based on actual distances from Wajir town to the respective wards as provided by the Ministry of Transport.

A review of the documents revealed that the MCAs were entitled to reimbursement amount of Sh4.6 million but the actual amount paid for mileage claims was Sh11.1 million resulting in an over-payment of Sh6.5 million.

 In Meru, the county assembly is on the spot over irregular expenditure on domestic travel of Sh9.6 million for training of members of staff and budgetary committee meeting in Nairobi which is a contravention of The National Treasury Circular number 20/2015 of 4 November, 2015 on holding the events within County headquarters.

The Embu county assembly has unsupported domestic travel of Sh3.8 million that was not backed by evidence of travel documents such as work tickets, bus tickets and daily sitting reports or minutes while the Kitui county assembly has unconfirmed foreign travel and subsistence allowances totalling to Sh90.7 million.

 The Kiambu county assembly has massive irregularities including questionable projects, irregular legal fees and questionable human resource issues.

Fiscal responsibility

 On human resource issues, the audit report has raised several issues including non-compliance with fiscal responsibility on wage bill, delays in confirmation of about eight employees, non-compliance with the one third of basic salary rule as some employees received negative net pay, non-compliance with law on ethnic composition as 96 staff out of whom 80 employees or 83 per cent were from the dominant ethnic community in the county.

 Reads the report: “It was observed that one fuel card was used by more than one vehicle, an indication of weak internal control in fuel management. This was contrary to Section 149(1) of the Public Finance Management Act, 2012.”

 Mombasa county assembly, Gathungu has raised concerns over irregular payment of legal fees amounting to Sh300,000 that was paid to a private legal consultant for services offered during the swearing in ceremony of the Members of County Assembly.

However, the report regrets that the Management did not explain why they hired the services of a private legal firm instead of using the County’s internal legal counsel.

 The report on the other hand has pointed at the Kwale county assembly over payments totalling Sh6.8 million relating to domestic travel and subsistence allowance as it was not supported with signed attendance schedules for the events attended.

Transportation expenses

The Makueni county assembly, the report shows, paid MCA’s double compensation on transportation expenses.

The report states that out of Sh142.2 million under personal allowances Sh21.1 million and Sh2.1 million for transport allowance and mileage allowance, for Members of the County Assembly (MCAs).

However, the review of the vehicle records revealed that three MCAs had also been allocated personal vehicles fully maintained and fuelled by the County Assembly which amount to double compensation on transport expenses.

In the circumstances, the completeness and propriety of the compensation of employees` expenditure amounting to Sh142,219,385 could not be confirmed.

 In Nyandarua, the county assembly has unsupported payment of special house allowance amounting to Sh70 million and unsupported Sh9.1 million mileage allowances

 In Nandi, the county made an overpayment of commuter allowance of Sh156.9 million yet records provided revealed that MCAs were sworn in on September 21, 2022 but were paid commuter allowance for the whole month of September, 2022 when they qualified for a commuter allowance for two return journeys only.