Auditor General Edward Ouko.[PhOTO/jamhuri-news.com]
Governors were in a rush to withdraw money from county coffers in the run-up to last year’s General Election which was disguised as pending bills, Auditor General Edward Ouko revealed on Wednesday.
Ouko made the revelation even as the Director of Budget Agnes Odhiambo disclosed that counties pending bills now stand at Sh96 billion.
“Towards elections there were very many projects which were committed by governors which were unusual,” Ouko told a Senate joint committee chaired by Muhamoud Mohammed of Mandera and Moses Kajwang (Homa Bay).
Appearing before the joint committees of Public Accounts and Investment, and that of Finance, Ouko said the bills most owed to suppliers and contractors shot up in the last few months to last year’s elections.
“It is clear the money was spent elsewhere and the figures charged debts owed to suppliers,” Ouko told the joint committee.
Ouko, however, lamented that the process to audit the bills was being hampered by lack of funds even after Treasury agreed to allocate Sh200 million to finance the process.
“We had an agreement with Treasury last year that the money is provided for to facilitate the work but to date, the money has not been availed,” Ouko told the senators.
Asked why counties were not paying yet they were receiving allocations from the exchequer, Odhiambo attributed the problem to counties overstating their local revenues and allocating monies to projects even before money was availed.
“Counties have ambitious budgets which are not funded and go ahead to commit money to projects based on revenues they do not have.
It is due to this that the pending bills continue to go up,” she said.
She said pending bills will be audited within the next two months and the authentic ones paid promptly.
Ouko said during the audit process, his officers will, among others, probe whether the procurement processes were followed when awarding the tenders.