Nyandarua County fails to show how Sh50m was used

The Nyandarua County Assembly could have lost up to Sh50 million in the 2017/2018 financial year through unsupported procurement of goods, services and hefty allowances.

In his report, Auditor- General Edward Ouko faults the assembly for not carrying out formal risk assessment in all key financial risk areas, including expenditure and fraud.

Further, the assembly lacks a disaster recovery plan, which means crucial information might not be recovered in case a disaster occurs.

“It is noted that the assembly maintained manual cashbooks as well as Excel cashbooks. A comparison of the two books revealed several inconsistencies in terms of transactions recorded and the reported balances,” said the report.

FINANCIAL RECORDS

Financial records captured in the Excel recurrent expenditure indicated an overdraft of over Sh15 million, but this was not reflected in the manual cashbook, while the deposit account, which had a balance of Sh16 million, was not supported by a cashbook, bank statements, or confirmation certificates.

The report faults the assembly for spending Sh17 million on legal fees, which includes Sh5 million paid without clearly linking the fees to specific cases handled, and without stating how much was charged per case.

The assembly did not provide any evidence that the Attorney-General approved the expenditure of the legal fees.

On domestic travel, the report noted that the assembly spent Sh8 million on an induction course for members at a Naivasha hotel, during which ward reps were paid Sh20,000 in travel allowances, against the Sh5,000 approved by the County Assembly Public Services Board.

Also, there was no proof of travel to Naivasha.

ALLOWANCES

The assembly also presented a list of participants to the County Assemblies Sports Association games in Machakos but failed to provide travel and participation programmes, yet Sh6 million was paid as allowances to the participants, with Sh5 million paid for fuel, months after the event.

consumption, a firm was paid Sh0.5 million for fuel but the payments were not supported by detail orders, supplier statement or invoices.

On routine motor vehicle servicing, the assembly spent Sh7.3 million but nor pre and post inspection reports were filed for the repairs or spare parts used, and part of repairs entered in the record is indicated as advocate fee.

Mr Ouko’s report disputes Ah19 million was spent on training, since there was no evidence of travel, no training programme, signed attendance sheet, and there was no evidence the assembly leadership conducted a training need assessment for the staff.

EQUIPMENT

“In this view of above inconsistencies, the genuineness, and accountability of this expenditure was doubtful,” reads the audit report.

On ICT, the audit questions the Sh11 million used in the purchase of related equipment, including mobile phones where delivery notes and receipt voucher did not indicate respective mobile phone serial numbers.

“It was therefore not possible to confirm that the serial numbers appearing in issuance register were for the phones ordered and delivered. Further, the issuance register did not specify the designation of those issued and date of issue,” says the report.

The assembly disclosed pending bills Sh2.1 million which were not properly supported and lacked transaction details in the ledger and were also inconsistent with the Local Service Order.