Murang’a team vetting pending bills rejects claims worth Sh1.5b
The committee which was constituted by Murang’a Governor Irungu Kang’ata to audit the pending bills has thrown out 244 claims amounting to Sh1.5 billion.
Committee vice chair Caroline Njoroge said they could not approve the claims for payment as they lacked relevant supporting documents, evidence of supply of goods or proof of the work done.
Njoroge said the committee received a total of 516 claims which were amounting to Sh2,477,198,425.
She said after thorough audit, the committee only approved payment of 174 claims amounting to Sh646,989,852.
She added that 118 claims of Sh249,938,537 were deemed to have fallen outside the scope of the mandate of the committee as they did not fall within the financial years under scrutiny.
“We did thorough scrutiny on the claims and paid random visits to various sites to confirm if the work was done,” said Njoroge.
She said the committee was compromised of procurement officers, auditors, lawyers among others and thus their report is clean.
“The findings by the committee are however not final and any aggrieved supplier can seek redress from the acting Finance Chief Officer Edwin Kimuyu,” she said.
The county is set to release the four year payment plan for the validated bills.
The Governor called for an audit of the pending bills for the financial years 2020/21 and 2021/22 which had been left unsettled by his predecessor.
A separate committee which was conducting audit on the county government employees also released it’s report where it pointed out 222 were ghost workers.
The ghost workers are said to have been drawing an annual salary of Sh195,574,296.
John Murigi, who was heading the team, said 5,366 people participated in the exercise. 57 of the workers were found to have exceeded their years of service and ought to have retired.
The committee further recommend a review of terms of engagement for 1,865 workers for them to enjoy benefits of regular employees.
Murigi said the salaries were accounting for a huge percent of the recurrent expenditure which stands at 59.5 percent of the county’s capitation.
Deputy Governor Stephen Munania, who received the reports from both committees, said the recommendations given will help streamline several areas that have been highlighted.
