How millions were wasted on PAC trips that failed to yield reports

Details of how one of Parliament’s most powerful committees wasted taxpayers money on non-productive report-writing trips can now be revealed, as investigations into claims of corruption among its members enter the second week.

The Public Accounts Committee, whose members are embroiled in accusations and counter-accusations of collusion, bribery and extortion, spent Sh4.5 million on a trip to Mombasa last year which did not yield the intended report.

The Sunday Nation has further learnt that it is not just PAC that has wasted public funds on unfruitful trips.

There have been several occasions where MPs, through their various committees, have wasted huge amounts of taxpayers’ money on trips that turned out to be beach holidays.

Towards the end of last year, the National Assembly leadership expressed concern about poor attendance of committee meetings and workshops organised for MPs away from Nairobi and paid for by the taxpayer.

Concern grew as members would fail to turn up for workshops, conferences and meetings despite confirming attendance, occasioning loss of public resources.

Most would turn such trips into holidays, only making technical appearances and signing for daily allowances, especially when in Mombasa or Kisumu.

It also emerged that some members pick up their tickets, then change the dates of travel so they can use them for personal travel.

The clerk of the National Assembly, Mr Justin Bundi, is on record saying that apart from quorum issues, poor time-keeping and technical appearances at such meetings were also issues of concern that had affected Parliamentary business in committee retreats.

In the PAC case, members of the committee were to use their five days at a five-star hotel in November to draft and finalise a report on their investigations into alleged corruption and misappropriation of funds in the Judiciary.

At the centre of the investigations is former Chief Registrar of the Judiciary, Ms Gladys Boss Shollei, who was accused of presiding over a series of professional malpractices that compromised effective service delivery in the judicial arm.

The Sunday Nation learnt that the retreat failed to deliver anything following disagreements on the report structure and some evidence the committee had received.

The committee had a whole week to work on the report, which was to be tabled in Parliament for adoption after months of meetings and the collection of evidence from several individuals in the Judiciary, including current and former top leadership, and connected organisations.

SEVERAL IRREGULARITIES

Evidence pointed to several irregularities at the institution that led to misappropriation of public funds.

Confidential sources who attended the Mombasa retreat said there were claims of attempts to push for the clearance of some people adversely mentioned during the committee’s public hearings on the matter.

On a Monday, the first day of the retreat, members were expected to write and complete a report on the Constituency Development Fund. The chairman, Mr Ababu Namwamba, currently at the centre of a debacle in the public finances expenditure watchdog committee, was nowhere to be seen.

But none of the members of his committee was willing to step in and chair the session. According to our source, “nobody could dare take over the task without the chair’s authority”.

It was not until 4pm that the chairman called to ask Kipkelion West MP Jackson Rop to step in and chair the meeting. This was an examination of Constituency Development Fund (CDF) accounts for 2011/2012 and 2012/2013.

The team was able to conclude the report on the 2011/2012 period by the end of the day, without the chair’s input. But they were reluctant to proceed to the 2012/2013 report because “it had issues,” according to our source.

On the second day, the committee cleared the CDF report for the 2012/2013 financial year. Our source claimed that such reports don’t often excite the chairman, who usually delegates his task and sits back, “chatting on phone and tweeting on his gadgets”.

DASH TO SWIMMING POOL

On the second day of the report writing trip, the chairman would, in between sessions, dash to the swimming pool to relax with his wife and two children, only to dash back to the meeting room at around 5pm to insist that members must extend the sitting to 9pm to finish the report.

The third day was to be the first day for members to start writing the report on the rot in the Judiciary. But the committee could not make any headway following a clash over the structure of the report between the chairman and the clerk of the committee.

The chairman took issue with the draft report and the draft observations, insisting that evidence from Mrs Shollei had been left out. He accused the clerk of the committee of being compromised by the Judiciary, giving him a complete dressing down.

But the clerk insisted that the draft was based on observations made, based on findings presented during committee hearings.

On the fourth day — the second day of the Judiciary writing report — the chairman suspended the sittings, although the issue still remained that the secretariat had failed to generate an acceptable report structure. The secretariat was asked to rework the structure of the report.

On all the occasions, members went ahead to sign for and collect their daily sitting allowances of about Sh15,000  and Sh30,000 for the chairman, despite not doing much.

Our source divulged that all the while, members were just buying time and waiting for money to come from some people implicated in the investigation.

It is alleged that two of the members had been tasked to collect and bring the money to the rest.

“Some members were blunt and openly said they would not proceed with the report writing until the money came,” our source said. It is, however, not clear whether any money was ever delivered to the members and if so, how much.

On the fifth day, a Friday, the committee sat for just an hour. The sittings were then suspended after the chairman declared that the draft report was bad and rejected it.

He ordered the committee to return to Nairobi and a fresh meeting be rescheduled for another report-led writing mission. In December, the committee proceeded on a three-day trip to Kisumu to finalise the judiciary report. Again, the retreat did not yield much.

On the first day, the chairman appeared at around midday and again picked issues with the structure of the report, which led some committee members to conclude that he did not want the report writing exercise to proceed.

It is here that he sharply differed with the committee’s senior clerk on the structure of the report and ordered him to leave the room. Those present said it was a nasty scenario, with the clerk retorting that he would be glad to leave… and walked out.

MEETING ADJOURNED

The clerk’s assistant was told to take over. Again, the meeting was adjourned, this time to allow the chairman to attend an ODM event in Ugenya, never to return to the committee venue as promised.

He flew back to Nairobi the following day.

It is then that tension started building up among members and a vote of no confidence was mooted.

But then, it is claimed, the chairman intimidated members into silence, claiming he had dossier on their alleged involvement in bribery. He told members “he would go down with them,” according to our source.

Our source claimed Mr Namwamba had dictatorial tendencies and many members of the committee feared him and could not question or challenge him.

The Speaker of the National Assembly is on record as having criticised the committee for, among other issues, delaying to table its reports on important national matters. But Mr Namwamba defended the committee, saying it had achieved a lot in a very short time

“If this committee was to be charged fairly in the court of this House, the best format index to judge the committee’s performance are these reports,” he said.