Kiambu Governor James Nyoro has vehemently disputed claims that his administration had misappropriated funds meant to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 in the county.
He rubbished the allegations during a televised interview claiming saying that those propagating the narrative were doing so for political expediency as some had declared interest for the gubernatorial seat during the coming elections.
Nyoro said his political detractors were hell bent on painting him in bad light by swaying the public discourse to focused only of the audit queries, leaving out the responses by the County on the concerns raised by the office of the Auditor-General.
“When questions are asked in the audit, and you are given an opportunity to respond, how come people look at those responses and say what happened?” he asked. “I think for me, it is very unfortunate to over-generalize and on an issue about resources coming in to prepare for the fourth wave in July if it comes.”
He claims that his County received 185 million which was used for the construction of medical facilities to assist with the COVID-19 response.
He noted, “Governor Oparanya has actually been our guest in Kiambu together with CS for devolution who came to witness the establishment of in Tigoni health facility as a COVID center with 330 beds and since he is here, you can get it from the horse’s mouth.”
The debacle began when Kenya’s Auditor General Nancy Gathungu produced an audit report earlier this year, with several queries concerning the spending of COVID 19 funds with the governor asserting that all the queries raised were put to rest after the county cleared the air.
Queries by the auditing body surrounded the spending of money that was meant to be used in the fight against the COVID 19 disease. According to the Auditor’s report, the County overpaid frontline health workers 108 million sh which was 2 million above the 106 million shillings initially allocated for that purpose.
The special audit report also highlighted concerns over an alleged overpayment of medical emergency allowances to 335 officers by 178,000 shillings and a double payment of medical emergency allowances to 47 officers by 773,000 shillings
This prompted the summoning of the Governor to appear before the Senate Health Committee. Here, the session degenerated into nasty exchanges between Kiambu Senator Kimani Wamatangi and Governor James Nyoro.
By Lydia Shiloya and Duncan Mutwiri
