Siaya governor James Orengo has decried the wanton corruption perpetrated by a group of powerful individuals in Siaya County who operate like a mafia.
The County boss called on the civil society groups and other stakeholders to join hands in eradicating the group, who he said are motivated by their own interest.
Mr Orengo was speaking during a consultative meeting that brought different stakeholders to brainstorm on the possible ways of implementing the audit report tabled by the task force on January 20.
According to the findings that were published in the report, the former administration misappropriated over Sh1 billion.
“Siaya is operating like a mafia. For us to move forward we must work together and do away with it, otherwise we shall not succeed in doing anything for the people,” said Mr Orengo.
According to the Siaya County boss, the syndicate has interest in the tendering and revenue collection processes.
“Before the issue of giving government tenders came, Siaya was very silent. Now that tenders are given to companies it is the main thing. The other area is the revenue collection sector where individuals have vested interests,” he pointed out.
He added, “I would like to call on the County department of Finance to ensure that the tenders are advertised publicly and the process of awarding them is conducted openly, and if possible the civil society groups should be part of the process. This will enable us to adhere to the principle of good governance.”
Ready to kill
Depending on whose interest is at stake, Mr Orengo said that the perpetrators can kill just to meet their interests.
“For us to free this county we must deal with this. We cannot be hostage to their interests. Furthermore you must know that they have their agents everywhere,” he said.
On the revenue collection, Mr Orengo said there are revenue officers who have failed on their mandates and cashless mode of payment for the revenue collection in the county is in the offing.
“In order to bring sanity to the revenue collection exercise, we decided to form a task force. After the task force things improved in terms of collections of revenue, why is that? We are working on establishing a cashless mode of payment soon,” he said.
The audit report presented by the task force on the financial operations of Siaya County government revealed wanton misappropriation of funds including Sh285 million that was spent on tea during seminars while other sectors such as agriculture and education were starved of funds.
The task force that was led by the former Auditor General Edward Ouko was formed specifically to find out the finance operations within Siaya in the last two financial years.
Other members included; Rowena Stella Ndeda (secretary), political analyst Prof Adams Oloo, Dr Grace Ongile, Ms Bella Akinyi, Mr Jared Buoga and Dr Peter Joseph Okoth
The report further established that between July 1 and September 29, 2022 some Sh25,167,233.75 was paid to individual staff from the recurrent account purportedly for training activities which is yet to be ascertained.
In the same period, another Sh159,200,000 payments were made to individual staff from the imprest account.
Another Sh9,236,000 were paid to assembly staff, it is not clear what the money was meant for nor was it budgeted for.
The report also uncovered irregular transfer of funds from various county accounts to others contrary to the Public Finance and Management Act.
The audit also put the County Assembly on the spot, blaming it for mutilating the budgets and stifling development over the years despite residents paying millions in taxes. BY DAILY NATION