Siaya Governor James Orengo’s special task force that was formed to audit the county’s financial operations and alleged misappropriation of funds earlier today released their progress report on their ongoing probe.
The task force chaired by former Auditor General Edward Ouko highlighted several areas of concern that the seven-member task force was looking into in order to put in order the county’s financial position since taking over from the past regime.
Lapses in the budget making process by the County Assembly was cited as one area where disparities in figures occurred with the assembly altering budget figures without due consultation with the executive.
According to Ouko, this occurrence has been noted with projects that are intended to be implemented within a year stretching over several years due to inadequate budget provisions within the specific financial year the projects were undertaken and with effect increasing the number of incomplete or stalled projects in the county.
In the 3-year financial period 2019/202, 2020/2021 and 22021/2022, the Siaya operated Sh 1.125 billion for each year respectively and in the subsequent years in an effort to plug the deficit the county has resorted to reduction of allocation to some projects or recurrent expenditures, Ouko however noted that these reductions inevitably lead to creation of pending bills.
Another area highlighted on the audit progress report by Ouko was the rights to the County’s Integrated Financial Management System (IFMIS) which was discovered that access to this system was issued to a number of individuals who do not merit access to the system, thus opening it to manipulation and abuse, eroding the internal controls and integrity of the system.
The county’s imprest account, according to the task force, the county treasury has not complied with the regulations governing operations of the imprest account.
Contrary to regulations, Siaya County’s imprest account has been previously used to hold sums of money that go beyond the recommended amounts especially towards the end of financial years, and payments are made from these accounts which are not petty as provided by law.
Transactions amounting to Sh.323,842,954 made through one of the county’s imprest account was flagged as an irregularity by the task force as the magnitude of the amount does not qualify the transaction to be regarded as petty payments.
According to Ouko, the internal audit of 2021 indicated that almost Sh. 296,021,578 was paid as other staff allowances implying that payments that ought to have been processed through IFMIS were paid through imprest accounts by the county.
Ouko said there were two incidents of direct financial mismanagement or embezzlement towards the end of financial years between 2020 to 2022 involving an estimated Sh. 1 billion where Sh 600 million was transacted in the financial year 2020/2021 and Sh 400 million 2021/2022 and are both currently under investigation by the DCI and the anti-corruption body EACC.
In 2021, the report cites that Sh. 780 million was paid to various individual staff as recurrent expenditure with significant amounts being received by individuals purportedly for training activities yet to be verified and other payments totaling to Sh. 296 million paid from imprest accounts.
The seven-member task force is scheduled to present the full official report to Governor James Orengo on the 20th of January 2023 detailing all the areas of irregularities and their findings together with recommendations and cause of action.
By Calvin Otieno
