Turkana Governor Josephat Nanok and his finance officers on Thursday came under pressure over an ‘arithmetic error’ that could have cost the county Sh789.73 million.
The governor struggled to explain why his administration declared receiving Sh9.2 billion from the Exchequer despite receiving Sh10 billion in the 2017-18 financial year.
He appeared before the Senate County Public Accounts and Investments Committee to answer audit queries raised by Auditor General Edward Ouko.
“How can you convince someone that this money did not get lost?” committee chairman Moses Kajwang asked.
The governor said that there were ‘arithmetic errors’ in the financial statement presented to the auditors for review.
“I had not identified this error but I can say this is an arithmetic error. It is true we received Sh10 billion during the year,” he said.
But the committee members questioned how such an error could have escaped the eyes of all the financial officers including internal auditors and the audit committee.
“How can this be explained? You have CPA –Ks how do they fail to notice such an error? Anybody out there will simply conclude that this money was stolen,” Kiambu Senator Kimani Wamatangi said.
In response, Governor Nanok admitted that his officers in the finance department have had capacity challenges, but pointed out that they have since undergone training to boost their skills.
Nanok, who is the immediate former chairman of the Council of Governors, was also hard-pressed to explain why his administration paid Sh95.74 million for the medical equipment leased to the county.
The county paid for the equipment despite it being catered for by the national government under a conditional grant.
“Leased equipment is taken care of by the national treasury and there is no way you can capture it in your financial statements because you did not receive the money in your county revenue account,” Kajwang said.
Nominated Senator Millicent Omanga said that the allocation could have been used to sanitise illegality by the county finance officers.
In the audit report, Ouko noted that the county officers did not provide a lease agreement for the equipment for audit review.
Further, Nanok and his officers were criticised for failing to account for Sh12.40 million that the county used to construct a road in the area.
During the year, Nanok’s administration spent Sh234.03 million to construct the four-kilometre A1-Elkaales road, but only accounted for Sh212 million.
“Further, supporting documents such as engineer’s estimate, tender evaluation minutes, performance bond and signed contract agreement were not available for audit,” read the Audit report.
Nanok explained that his officers had provided the documents to the auditors and the Senate for review.
(Edited by O. Owino)
