Treasury on the spot over Sh714bn

The Treasury is again on the spot for failing to account for Sh714 billion collected from taxpayers over two financial years.

The Mars Group, a non-governmental anti-corruption watchdog, on Wednesday raised the red flag over the amount said to have been collected by the government as tax revenue during the 2007/2008 and 2008/2009 financial years but is yet to be accounted for.

Group chief executive Mwalimu Mati released a report revealing that the Treasury had not accounted for Sh489 billion in tax revenue raised in 2007/2008 and another Sh215 billion in 2008/2009, among others.

On Wednesday, the Treasury said it was studying the document and would issue a response.

The new report comes exactly two years after Mars unearthed a Sh9.2 billion discrepancy in the supplementary budget tabled in Parliament by Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta. (READ: KISERO: Has someone been fleecing the Treasury of cash?)

Mr Kenyatta initially denied there was anything wrong with the numbers, but later admitted that the figures were erroneous and blamed it on a “computer error.”

It later emerged that senior Treasury officials had been aware of the discrepancy in the figures even before the Supplementary Budget was printed.

Releasing the report on Wednesday, Mars Group’s Jayne Mati demanded the resignation of senior officials at the Treasury, including Mr Kenyatta and permanent secretary Joseph Kinyua.

“It appears Treasury has been keeping two sets of books with different figures. There seems to be a cover-up because the sets of records given to the Controller and Auditor General are different from the ones given to Parliament,” Ms Mati said.

Finance ministry officials did not attend the function, but a camera crew from the Treasury filmed the entire event.

Former Kabete MP Paul Muite demanded a forensic audit to establish the whereabouts of the unaccounted for funds.

“Parliament must not act in vain, we must have a forensic audit to explain where the Sh714 billion has gone to,” he said.

The Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission confirmed receiving the report and promised to investigate the matter.

The report borrows heavily from the Controller and Auditor General’s reports for the two financial years giving details of revenues raised through income tax, value added tax and corporation taxes.

It lists several cases where the Controller and Auditor General discovered discrepancies in records of revenues received by KRA and what was actually received by the Treasury.

The report also details cases where accounts of revenues banked at the Central Bank do not tally with records kept by the tax collector.

Because of the glaring discrepancies, the Controller and Auditor General declined to issue general certificates against 11 out of 14 accounts after he noted serious queries.

The situation was worse the following year, forcing the Controller and Auditor General not to issue certificates to 13 out of the 14 accounts.