Puzzle of Sh100bn discrepancy in civil servants' training costs
The amount of money spent on training civil servants remains a puzzle after three key State entities gave conflicting figures with a discrepancy above Sh100 billion.
The Public Service Commission (PSC), in its 2021/22 annual report indicated that Sh121.4 billion was spent on the exercise.
During the same year, the Controller of Budget (COB) in her report on national government budget implementation, reported that only Sh3.89 billion was for training, under the operations and maintenance budget.
Then the National Treasury reported that spending on training during the year was Sh4.2 billion in 2021/22 as PSC observed, a discrepancy that is now arousing concerns about what the national government spends on the budget item that constitutes recurrent expenditure.
PSC in the latest report indicated that a total of Sh151 billion was allocated to public institutions under the national government to cater for training, out of which Sh121.5 billion was spent, observing that the allocation constituted 10 per cent of the government’s Sh1.5 trillion recurrent budget during the year.
“The total allocation for training as reported by public institutions was Sh151 billion. The absorption level of the funds allocated for training was Sh121.4 billion (80.4 per cent). This means that the reporting institutions did not absorb Sh29.6 billion (19.6 per cent) of the allocated training funds,” PSC stated.
Inconsistencies
But the report observes inconsistencies between what public institutions reported to it as having been received and spent on training, from reports made by other institutions mandated to report budget implementation in the country.
The PSC report says during the year, ministries and State departments had the highest spending on training at Sh114.6 billion, followed by Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVETs) at Sh3.4 billion and public universities at Sh1.5 billion.
In the COB 2021/22 full-year report, however, less than Sh4 billion was spent on training, with the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) the highest spender at Sh1.02 billion, followed by the Ministry of Health at Sh478 million.
But the COB captured an extra Sh1.07 billion reported as training spending under ‘other spending’ by the State Department for youth affairs, Sh50.65 million reported similarly by the state department for infrastructure, and Sh68.56 million reported by the State Department for livestock, all totalling Sh1.19 billion.
“There was inconsistency in the information provided by the National Treasury and the institutions regarding funds allocated and utilised in training. The National Treasury reported that Sh4.2 billion was allocated for training during the 2021/2022 fiscal year,” said the PSC. BY DAILY NATION
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