From: Tebiti Oisaboke
By James Anyanzwa and Macharia Kamau
Controller and Auditor General’s report for last financial year was tabled in Parliament and the bombshell is auditors cannot figure out where Sh7 billion went.
According to report by Kenya National Audit Office (Kenao), the biggest culprits in the unsupported expenditures were just five ministries, which among them could not account for Sh6.4 billion.
At Sh3.6 billion, Beth Mugo’s Public Health tops the list of ministries with unaccounted for funds. Franklin Bett’s Roads follow her ministry where an expenditure of Sh889 million – almost a fourth what is untraceable in Mugo’s ministry – cannot be tracked.
Third in the hierarchy of ministries where auditors forensically tell how funds allocated were spent is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which in the financial year in question was under Moses Wetangula, at Sh743 million. The Sirisia MP, however, stepped aside last October along with his Permanent Secretary, Thuita Mwangi, over a scandal involving several Kenyan embassies abroad.
Two other ministries cannot explain how over Sh400 million was spent. They are the Internal Security and Provincial Administration Ministry under George Saitoti (Sh662 million), and Special Programmes, which oversaw the resettlement of the internally displaced, then under Naomi Shabaan (Sh408 million).
“During the year under review various ministries submitted for audit accounts which were inaccurate. Many such appropriation accounts had errors and reflected balances which did not reconcile with those shown in their ledgers,” said the Controller and Auditor General Anthony Simon Gatumbu in his report.
Political responsibility
Though ministers are not accounting officers, a function, which is held by Permanent Secretaries, they are the principal heads of their ministries and when things go wrong, are usually asked to take political responsibility.
In the shocking revelations, which were it not for the huge amounts involved would be explained as audit queries, the Auditor General’s report for 2009-2010 shows the accounting officers could not shed light on how the allocations were spent.
On the sixth position in the list is James Orengo’s Ministry of Lands, with unexplained expenditure of Sh196 million.
There were several ministries under the Sh100 million threshold, including the Prime Minister’s office (Sh59 million), Agriculture, which was then under Eldoret North MP William Ruto (Sh92 million), Samuel Poghisio’s Information and Communications (Sh59 million), Chris Obure’s Public Works (Sh28 million), Uhuru Kenyatta’s Ministry of Finance (Sh10 million) and Industrialisation then under Tinderet MP Henry Kosgey (Sh89 million).
Inadequate controls
The report also unraveled how Government ministries and departments manipulated their accounts and exercised weak or inadequate controls in management of imprests resulting in huge balances to the tune of Sh792 million.
Pending bills by all the ministries during the period under review stood at Sh16.64 billion. The unaccounted for Sh7 billion was listed on unsupported expenditure by 15 of 40 ministries of the Grand Coalition Government.
The Controller and Auditor General also asked the Treasury to reconcile the main pool accounts, which had an unexplained Sh120 million expenditure, to reflect prudent management of public funds. The office questioned the discrepancy between the appropriation account and the trial balance.
Some of the accounting officers at the time were Engineer Samuel Kamau (Roads), Francis Kimemia (Provincial Administration), Dorothy Angote (Lands), and Thuita Mwangi (Foreign Affairs). Though Shabaan was in charge of Special Programmes, the ministry is now under Esther Murugi and she is in Gender.
The accounting officer at the Treasury is Joseph Kinyua, whose unaccounted amount was the lowest.
Also featuring, albeit with low figures were Ministry of East Africa Community (Sh2 million) and Home Affairs (Sh3.75 million), under Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka.
Not supported
Mr Gatumbu revealed in other instances, expenditures were not supported by relevant documents, and as a result the authenticity of the disbursements could not be ascertained.
The report also reveals how the Ministry of Information and Communication spent Sh44.47 million without the approval of Parliament. According to the report the ministry’s excess vote did not include pending bills amounting to Sh9.28 million.
According to the report financial year ended with the Government’s financial position having an overall net surplus of Sh25.92 billion, compared to Sh35.78 billion in the previous year.
However there was under-expenditure by various ministries and departments to the tune of Sh54.58 billion. The Auditor General attributed the under-expenditure to the inadequate absorption capacity among the various ministries.
“The under-expenditure was mainly due to slow implementation of projects, inadequate exchequer issues, delayed disbursement of donor funds, and non-submission of expenditure returns by development partners,” said Gatumbu.
It is not the first time the national audit office has found glaring irregularities in Government accounts. In the 2007/2008 and 2008/2009 financial years, the Auditor General’s reports also showed a massive Sh714 billion, which could the Treasury could not accounted for.
The audit queries raised by the Controller and Auditor General were made up of Sh489 billion and Sh215 billion for the financial years 2007/2008 and 2008/2009. His reports for the two financial years give details of revenues raised through Income Tax, Value Added Tax, and Corporation Taxes. The Controller and Auditor General discovered discrepancies in records of revenues received by Kenya Revenue Authority and what was actually received by the Treasury.
The report also details cases where accounts of revenues banked at the Central Bank did not tally with KRA records