A former Government Advertising Agency employee has told a Nairobi court that there was alot of pressure from the media to pay pending bills while the agency had insufficient funding.
Patrick Ngichuru who was then chief finance officer in the Ministry of ICT, on Wednesday, confirmed that payments done by GAA followed due process and every incurred expense was above board.
Gichuru told Milimani chief magistrate Lucas Onyina that GAA incurred expenses because of low funding but the pending bills were solved when the treasury added the agency the Sh700m.
"The problem of GAA having pending bills was because the Treasury had not disbursed funds to the agency. Pressure from media outlets led to the arrest of the accused persons and no money was stolen," he told the court.
He added that there was inadequate allocation of funds to GAA for the previous years from 2015 to the 2018 financial year leading to a backlog of the bills.
Ngichuru was testifying in a case where Kakamega Deputy Governor Ayub Savula is charged alongside former ICT PS Sammy Itemere for stealing Sh122 million that was meant for paying pending bills to advertisers.
In his testimony, the witness told the court that the total financial budget allocation for GAA from the year 2015/2016 was Sh408,047,53, financial 2016/2017 was Sh492,895,796, 2017/2018 was Sh492,893 and for the financial year 2018/2019 was Sh1,385,350,000.
He stated that he succeeded Sephano Ombachi who was transferred to the Ministry of Health.
"The financial years I have stated above is a budget and could not be been released the whole of it or collected the whole of it for purposes of payment," he said.
Before payment, he said the accounts have to examine the payment vouchers for authenticity documents attached to the vouchers if they are genuine.
"I recall in July 2018, I saw in the newspaper Ministry of ICT had not paid the media houses to the tune of Sh2.5 billion. The department of GAA is the one that was said to have not paid the media houses. I asked the Director of the advertising Agency Albert Gituku about it who told me it was true as they had no money to pay," he added.
He, however, said Gituku did not give the reason why they had not paid but said unless the treasury allocates money to them.
The accused persons are represented by lawyers Cohen Amanda, Alex Kimani, and Stanley Kangahi among others
The hearing continues on Thursday.
