- Siaya acting chief officer of finance Jack Odinga told the assembly committee probing allegations facing deputy governor William Oduol that the transactions within the 8 months were to support operations of the county government.
- Odinga told the committee that an officer who was in charge of IFMIS allegedly authorised the process that aided the attempted fraud.
Image: ICKENS WASONGA
Siaya County treasury has transacted Sh65 million from November to June through the imprest account.
Siaya acting chief officer of finance Jack Odinga told the assembly committee probing allegations facing deputy governor William Oduol that the transactions within the 8 months were to support operations of the county government.
He was responding to claims made by the DG earlier in the media and in other public forums that the county government withdrew Sh21 million in a single day in the month of November last year.
Odinga who appeared before the 14-member committee chaired by Yimbo East MCA Francis Otiato said the transaction carried out through the imprest account involved a few withdrawals but most of it was the issuance of direct cheques to county staff to facilitate county government activities.
The acting chief officer also explained to the committee how his team detected and stopped an attempted fraud in the payroll that could have led to a loss of Sh5.4 million in December last year.
Odinga told the committee that an officer who was in charge of IFMIS allegedly authorised the process that aided the attempted fraud.
He told the MCAs in the committee that the officer has since been moved to another docket.
"We detected the anomaly when the accountant was doing reconciliation before I could sign vouchers to authorise payment," he said.
"The manual payroll that had been processed by the Directorate of human resources couldn't compare with what was processed and put on IFMIS before it went to Internet banking."
This according to the acting chief officer necessitated a change of the system.
"I now have to reconcile what we have in the manual payroll with what we have in IFMIS and Internet banking before I can sign vouchers to authorise payment. This was not happening before," Odinga explained.
He told the committee that he also directed that an audit be carried out on the payroll.
" The audit is going on and we also took action against the officer who was behind the attempted fraud that would have seen Sh 5.4 Million lost in December last year," he said.
He also informed the committee that a cabinet decision had been made that put a cap on the amount of money allowable for transactions through the imprest account.
"We now have a policy on the amount of money that can be withdrawn from the imprest account," he said.
North Sakwa MCA Oliver Arika put the DG to task to table evidence of withdrawal of Sh21 million in the month of November from the imprest account on a single day as he had alleged on various occasions.
But in response, the DG told the committee that he is happy the conversation around the imprest account has changed since he began making noise.
He claimed that transfers from recurrent to imprest accounts were done in three tranches in the month of November.
"They transferred Sh 8 million, Sh 7 million and Sh 6 million totalling to Sh21 million in November," he said.
The three tranches, the DG stated were transferred from Recurrent to Imprest through requisition by the CEC finance.
"Once this is done, you can't reverse it," he said
Challenged to prove that the said transfers resulted in the withdrawal of money which could have been lost, the DG responded that he couldn't because he no longer had the opportunity to review the vouchers.
"Imprest is for petty cash. If you are withdrawing Sh4 million, Sh3.4 million, Sh2 million-, these are abnormal withdrawals to be considered as petty," he said.
He insisted that the representative of the controller of budget posted in Siaya County should confirm whether these requisitions were approved by the COB.
On allegations that he was bullying officers at the county government, particularly those in the finance department, the DG dismissed such claims.
" I'm the DG of Siaya. I deputize the Governor. I'm the governor's principal assistant. I execute and delegate responsibilities," he told the committee.
Oduol told the committee that the governor had delegated the financial responsibilities to him in the month of October last year.
He said that the governor even had, at the time, instructed the chief officer of finance to report to him on a weekly basis.
"He also gave me the responsibility to chair some of the cabinet sub-committees at the time," he said.
The committee which was established by speaker George Okode to investigate allegations facing the DG tabled by East Asembo MCA Gordon Onguru is expected to write a report that will be taken back to the assembly.
The report will either be adopted or rejected by the assembly.