KIhika grilled: Inside audit queries that stunned public accounts senate committee

You remember that feeling you had in high school when the Biology teacher was standing next to you with a whip akisema, ‘fungua pahali ulichora diagram’, yet you know fully well the diagram is non- existent?

That was the situation a delegation from the Nakuru County Government led by Governor Susan Kihika found themselves in on September 3, before the Senate Committee on County Public Accounts.

So basically the Office Auditor General had raised some issues in their audit carried out in the Financial year 2024/2025 and the Governor and her team were to come before this committee and give a status on the implementation of the issues raised by the Auditor General. 

During the session it was revealed that only seven of the 45 queries raised by the OAG had been resolved. Well kudos to the county! But the other 38, there is where the questions lied. 

From the onset, the chair of the Senate Committee on County Public Accounts, Homa Bay Senator, Moses Kajwang' told the Governor that all they wanted to do was to confirm whether the implementation had been done and if so the County would have to provide evidence to the same.

One of the issues that stood out was the fact that Nakuru County does not have an audit committee.

As it was stated by Kajwang’ this in itself was a very serious violation of Public Finance Management Act (PFM) and regulation.

The work of the audit committee is to offer assurance to the management that the internal processes are serving the purposes which they were intended to. 

In simple words these are the people you use to make sure your house is in order, even before the OAG comes to go through your books.

The Governor tried to talk her way out of it, by saying that they advertised the position last year but the board noted that the majority of those who applied were not qualified hence there were not enough numbers to constitute the committee.

 She noted that they are back on the drawing board and have since re-advertised the positions. 

However, during the session, it was revealed that apart from the Audit committee Nakuru does not have a public service board, Chief Officer finance and a qualified head of accounting.

"If you don't have an audit committee, public service board, a chief officer finance, a qualified head of accounting services and an approved internal audit charter then your financial management is going to be in shambles. It is something you must go back and deal with," he said.

The other thing was an undisclosed decrease in retention money. This is money given to contractors who work for the County Government.  Sh. 104 million could not be accounted for.

 For the better part of 15 minutes the County delegation tried to wiggle their way out of it, but the question as to the whereabouts of this hefty sum was not coming out clear.

The chairperson stated, “Let the OAG do a thorough audit of the deposited retention at the Nakuru County Government. The report from the OAG will inform if the matter will be escalated to the EACC for investigation and prosecution"

Na huo ulikuwa mwanzo tu, ladies and gentlemen.

It turns out the OAG discovered that the County had inaccuracies in compensation of employees to the tune of sh. 200 million.

The chair, Kajwang’ said that without providing sufficient documentation to prove otherwise then this simply meant that there may be ghost workers in the county who have received this sh. 200 million.  

The OAG recommended that since they will be going to do another audit next week then they would look into the issue thoroughly and give further recommendations.

After almost 20 minutes of push and pull, Kajwang’ simply marked the matter as not being addressed and he instructed the OAG and County Government would need to attempt reconciliation failure to which this is a matter that would need investigation for purposes of prosecution.

These were just a few of the issues addressed they would communicate if they would sermon the Governor on a later date to address the remaining issues.