- The county chief admitted that the former top officials neglected their duties, letting down the county by attracting queries that could have been avoided.
- Lenku made the revelations when he appeared before the Senate County Public Accounts and Investments Committee to answer to 2018-19 audit queries.
Image: EZEKIEL AMING'A
Former Kajiado county finance chiefs face a Sh5 million fine or three years in jail for denying auditors key financial documents to facilitate auditing.
Governor Joseph Ole Lenku on Wednesday told a Senate oversight committee that the former officers sat on the documents unnecessarily, leading to several audit queries.
The county chief admitted that the former top officials neglected their duties, letting down the county by attracting queries that could have been avoided.
Lenku made the revelations when he appeared before the Senate County Public Accounts and Investments Committee to answer to 2018-19 audit queries.
The committee, chaired by the Migori Senator Ochillo Ayacko, put the governor to task to explain why his administration did not submit key documents to auditors to facilitate auditing.
According to the audit report, the county could not explain several expenditures with Auditor General Nancy Gathungu citing lack of documents to substantiate expenditures.
Yesterday, the governor availed the documents, clearing several queries.
The committee was astonished that the 2018-19 auditor general’s report had raised issues whose documents were readily available in the county but somehow could not be availed to the auditors when they made physical visits to the county.
“We cannot understand why these documents were not availed at the right time, yet they seem to have been in order. You were let down by your officers. In fact, an elephant is brought down by very small things,” Ayacko said.
Lenku blamed the former officers for not availing the documents yet they (documents) were available in their offices.
He said he was forced to take administrative action and sacked the entire team for errors of omission and poor engagement with the county’s external stakeholders.
He did not mention the officers.
The documents include contract papers, payment vouchers, bank statements, tender committee reports among other key documents needed to facilitate the auditing process.
“I did a reshuffle in the Finance department and brought in more responsive officers. Going forward, we shall ensure the documents are availed on time,” he said.
Ayacko threatened that the committee would invoke provision of the Public Audit Act and punish the ex-officers who sat on the document.
Section 62 of the Act provides that any public officers who without justification, fails to provide information required, shall be liable to a fine of Sh5 million or face a jail term of three years.
Isiolo Senator Fatuma Dullo said it seems the Department of Finance ignored the importance of the audit process or was negligent in its duties.
“Mr Governor, your house seems not to have been in order. The issues raised here could have been dealt with even before they got to the report,” Dullo said.
In the report, the auditor general queried why pending bills had shot up from Sh766 million in 2018 to Sh1.3 billion in 2019.
The auditors had also noted that 183 employees had been on probation for more than six months without confirmation or termination as at the time of the audit while another 521 new employees had been employed but their documents of engagements were not availed.
The governor's team led by the new Finance Executive Michael Semera and Chief Finance Officer Lekina Tutui later submitted the documentation including the advertisements in the local dailies.
The auditors raised concern over the lack of a backup server for the revenue system but the governor reported they had already procured the servers and were accessible through a link.
-Edited by SKanyara