Auditor General Nancy Gathungu is questioning suspicious spending by Taita Taveta county running into millions of shillings.
She has raised a red flag after the County Executive Committee failed to explain transactions in excess of Sh200 million.
The queries are majorly prompted by outstanding imprests to unavailability of supportive documents to back expenditure.
In her 2018-19 findings, Gathungu cited outstanding imprests standing at Sh16 million and which had not been recovered as required by the Public Finance Management (County Governments) Regulations, 2015.
On examination of imprest records, the county was found to have issued Sh7.4 million to 21 employees with un-surrendered balances.
Gathungu noted the county breached the PFM Regulations that prohibit the issue of new imprests to officers with overdue balances.
“Management breached regulations on the issue of imprests and did not enforce recovery of the overdue imprests,” she said.
Gathungu’s report unearthed the existence of a shocking racket where revenue collected in various subcounties does not reach the central pot as required.
The report says the total unaccounted revenue is Sh20 million.
In one instance, the Auditor pointed out that four subcounty officers collected an unquantified amount of revenue using fake receipts during the financial year.
“According to an investigation conducted by management, there were several other officers involved in the fraudulent practice,” the report reads.
“At the time of conducting the audit, in November 2019, 13 officers had been interdicted, and four dismissed from service and charged in court. Misappropriated revenue amounting to Sh645,865 was recovered from several subcounty revenue officers.”
The report was tabled at the Senate by Majority leader Samuel Poghisio early this month.
The county administration could also not account for the Sh44 million collected from public health facilities. According to the report, no system generated reports on revenue collected were presented for verification during an audit inspection at Mwatate Subcounty Hospital in October 2019.
The report further questioned why the executive did not collect Sh32 million from three mining companies that extract minerals in the county.
In another instance of questionable dealing, county records showed that it disbursed Sh7.4 million to MCAs as subsistence allowance. However, no documentary evidence showed the legislators received the cash.
The county was unable to provide signed schedules by the MCAs to acknowledge receipt of the allowances.
“Further, the respective work tickets, meeting attendance registers and minutes of meetings were not availed for audit review. As a result, the occurrence and validity of the expenditure totalling Sh7, 483, 407 could not be confirmed.”
Also on the Auditor’s radar is the Sh27.8 million insurance costs and which – according to the Auditor General – was not backed by the crucial documents to ascertain that the payment was indeed made.
In the alleged insurance payment, the report pointed out that some Sh1.3 million of the expenditure was not supported by requisitions from user departments, quotations and other procurement documents. BY THE STAR