Senators blame accounting officers for faulty payments

By IBRAHIM ORUKO
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The Senate has faulted county accounting officers for the disparities in compensating ward representatives and proposed that irregular payments flagged by the Auditor-General be recovered.
If the money is not returned to the government, says the County Public Accounts and Investments Committee, the accounting officers should be held responsible.
In its Fiduciary risk report on matters raised by Auditor-General Edward Ouko concerning public financial management by devolved governments for the 2012/13 to 2015/16 financial years, the committee noted irregularities in pay and allowances for ward representatives.
LAWS FLOUTED
Some of the issues relate to sitting allowances of chairpersons of committees in plenary sessions of county assemblies, excess monthly sitting allowances, overpayment by use of committee rates as opposed to plenary session rates, payment of allowances to non committee members and fraudulent payments of sitting allowance to absent members.
“The Salary and Remuneration Commission in consultation with county assemblies should develop a framework to ensure the commission’s circulars are uniformly applied,” the committee chaired by Homa Bay Senator Moses Kajwang says in its report. The report was adopted by the House last week.
While analysing reports of the Auditor-General, the committee established that counties flout the Public Finance Management laws, the Procurement and Asset Disposals Act, the 2015 Public Finance Management (County Governments) Regulations, the County Government Act, the Public Audit Act, the Income Tax Act and circulars from statutory agencies like the SRC and the Transitional Authority, which is now defunct.
FUNDS MISUSE
The report says the county governments did not adhere to their approved budgets throughout the period.
“In most cases, funds were reallocated to items that were not budgeted for and without approval by the National Treasury. Money meant for development was reallocated and used under operational accounts, resulting in shifting development budgets to cover for recurrent costs,” the report says.
Narok Senator Ledama ole Kina said county executives tasked with ensuring fiscal discipline should be held to account.
“They should ensure the money under their care is utilised properly. The Auditor-General noted that a lot of governors, their staff and entire Cabinets did not understand the process of managing the funds,” the senator said.
“Most of counties have several accounts into which they deposit their own-source revenue in violation of the law.”
The committee said counties prepare unrealistic budgets and that there were weaknesses in the control of budget performance.
DATA MANAGEMENT
The report adds that most counties do not have updated registers for assets and liabilities inherited from the local authorities and those acquired during devolution.
In some cases, payment to staff is outside the Integrated Personnel Payroll Data system.
Some devolved governments argue that the payments were made mainly to Early Childhood Development Education teachers and health workers because most did not have Kenya Revenue Authority personal identity numbers.
However, there was no explanation on why the workers did not have the PINs.
The Senate committee said paying employees without PIN is a recipe for financial irregularities as people who may not be county employees may be beneficiaries.
“Salaries for officers other than casuals should be processed through IPPD,” the report reads.
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