An audit on county books has revealed irregular deals in Makueni County. The report which was done by Auditor General Nancy Gathungu for the 2018/2019 financial year has shown that the Makueni County government did not provide valuation and needs assessment reports and ownership documents such as title deeds for four parcels of land it bought at more than Sh5 million.
In the year under review, the county made an irregular Sh5 payment to the Council of Governors, which the Ms Gathungu says was a breach of the law because “funding for the operations of the Council of Governors is provided for by the national government in accordance with Section 37 of the Intergovernmental Relations Act.”
“Management has also not demonstrated the efforts it has taken towards securing the documents thus the ownership of the four parcels of land could not be ascertained,” noted Ms Gathungu in the report.
Financial statements
Sh 57k was spent by the county on 27 projects out of 22 have been completed but yet to be commissioned. In Machakos County, a comparison of balances generated from the Integrated Financial Management Information System (Ifmis) with those reflected in the financial statements presented for audit revealed significant variances with regard to 16 accounts.
The audit revealed excluded bank balance amounting to Sh 991million held in five special purpose accounts. A further Sh10million is being held at Chase Bank that was placed under statutory receivership by the Central Bank of Kenya in 2016.
“Management did not provide reconciliations for the variances and, as a result, the accuracy, validity and completeness of the account balances, and the financial statements in whole, has not been confirmed. No plausible explanations were provided for the failure to settle the bills in spite of the county executive reporting annual surpluses,” quoted in the report.
