Taskforce Finds over Sh 1 billion pending bills in Trans-Nzoia Ineligible
A taskforce formed by Trans Nzoia governor George Natembeya to probe on the Sh 1.6 billion county pending bills and audit the human resource has ascertained that only Sh 551 million is eligible for payments.
The over Sh 1 billion difference accounting for 67 percent of the total pending bills were found to be ineligible for payment which means several of the purported contractors would not be paid for supplying áir’.
Speaking at the county’s Town Hall headquarters on Friday during the report handing over function, the taskforce chairperson Dr. Edward Ouko outlines a number of causes for the high level ineligibilities.
He revealed that there were uncontrolled and flawed procurement methods that were neither monitored nor recorded, unsupported bills and lack of evidence of receipt of goods and services.
Failure to demonstrate value for money from the procured goods and services, lack as well as poor records in the whole procurement process and instances where supporting documents were fake were also detected.
According to the report handed over to governor George Natembeya, there were great discrepancies in the pending bills during assumption of office and what the taskforce established to be the real figures.
In Education and ICT for example, the pending bills during the time of assumption of office by the taskforce as reported was Sh 78,378,268 but as per the taskforce, the exact amount was Sh 84,276,208.
In total, the reported pending bills for all the 10 departments was Sh 1.3 billion but the taskforce established the bills to be Sh 1.65 billion, a difference of over Sh 337 million.
Dr. Ouko said the seven member taskforce had to co-opt other members to make the work effective and had to seek for a review of their terms of reference seeking for additional time to complete the task.
The team has taken over three months to verify the pending bills and audit the human resource which has also been established to have ambiguities.
As per the report, the county’s IPPD register showed that there were 3,113 staff, 106 as per the manual register and 673 casuals totalling to 3,892 staffs.
The report showed that a number of staff did not turn up for the staff audit called for by the taskforce between September 19 and 22 last year and neither had they made any efforts to reach the team hitherto.
It was hence established that 470 employees were ghost workers and received payment for not showing up to work as they were never counted physically.
More than 400 other people showed up to claim that they were county employees yet there were no records supporting the same.
In the findings, there were no career progression guidelines, approved county staff establishment and performance management.
On his part, governor Natembeya pledged to implement the report in accordance with the law adding that he will empower the staff so that they can deliver efficient and effective services to the public.
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