Tana River County officials told to submit files for audit

Tana River Governor Dhadho Godhana has directed all procurement and accounting officers in all county departments to deliver all files for audit without fail.

This comes even as the office of the Auditor-General amid scrutinises pending bills.

Speaking to journalists in Hola, Governor Godhana said files often go missing whenever auditors came to the county, only for them to resurface once the auditors leave.

"We have not been audited satisfactorily in the past since every time people see auditors around, files go missing, this time I'm not going to subscribe to that joke, keep it transparent and clean,” he said.

WARNING

Mr Godhana warned that any officer who will be found hiding files will carry the burden of the pending debt.

He urged contractors with disputes to forward their documents to the respective offices by December 31 so as to be part of the audit and later part of the report that will be released by the auditors for the Auditor-General.

"This is also the opportunity for the aggrieved contractors who feel they were left out of compensation despite having genuine papers to verify service delivery,” he said.

FINANCE OFFICE

Further, the governor warned the Finance office from interfering with other offices as the audit goes on.

He directed the respective officers not to proceed for Christmas holidays until the audit is done.

Tana River County has been struggling with pending bills estimated at Sh2.1 billion inherited from the previous administration.

Sh700 million has since been paid.

CUT DOWN DEBT

The administration has been engaged in several audits, both internal and contracted, in bid to cut down on the debt.

But in the process, there have been challenges of missing files.

Another problem has been the collusion between departments and various contractors seeking to defeat justice in the audit process and have their way.

The Auditor-General has since contracted A. A. Ali &Company to carry out an audit of pending bills in Tana River County for verification purposes and then give directions on whether the national government will pay the bills or if the debt will be deducted from county’s allocation.

The audit of pending bills in all the 47 counties is expected to run up to January 7, 2019.