Africa-Press – Kenya. Former Embu Governor Martin Wambora could face investigation over Sh1.6 billion worth of ‘fake’ pending bills during his tenure.
Wambora is also on the spot for failing to remit employees statutory deductions worth more than Sh532 million.
The revelations emerged during the questing of Governor Cecily Mbarire – his successor – by the Senate County Public Accounts Committee.
The committee was considering Auditor General’s report for the financial year ended June 30, 2020.
Wambora served as Embu Governor from March 2013 to August 2023.
The committee chaired by Homa Bay Senator Moses Kajwang’ established that Wambora’s administration declared a Sh2.35 billion worth of pending bills.
However, an audit established that only Sh705 million worth of pending bills was eligible for payment.
Mbarire told the committee she inherited pending bills that amounted to Sh2.359 billion.
Having received two reports on pending bills, the governor said she established a taskforce to audit the pending bills declared in the handover report.
She said the taskforce found other claims outside those captured in the report by the assumption of governor’s office committee.
Further, there were anomalies flagged by the committee where undisclosed bills of Sh232 million were established and Sh170.1 million in repeated bills, some repeated twice or three times.
The governor told the panel that the committee found that some of the projects captured in the pending bills had no contractual timelines and local purchase order.
Mbarire said the projects did not have budgetary provisions and the budgets were formalised later after doing the projects.
Further, no termination clauses existed in the contracts making it difficult to get rid of a contractor who has been doing a project for four years without completion.
“The pending bills were quite exaggerated with many lacking documentation. We found that eligible pending bills were way less than what was captured in the handover report,” she said.
The first term governor said her administration paid Sh529 million of the bills upon assuming office.
Some of the debts paid were Kemsa debt and staff deductions, bringing the bills down to Sh1.659 billion.
The remaining Sh705.2 million, representing 42.49 per cent, was eligible for settlement while the ineligible amounted to Sh954.38 million.
Mbarire said ineligible bills included Sh112 million worth of incomplete works on site and Sh422 million worth of projects not supported by any relevant documents.
Some Sh419 million worth of projects were either abandoned, not started or partial invoices raised but works on site did not support the same.
Senator Kajwang’ said had the Sh2.3 billion pending bills been paid, the county government would be declared technically insolvent.
He said the county government has a budget of about Sh5.6 billion where Sh2.7 billion, representing 47 per cent, goes to personnel emoluments.
“This looks like there was an effort to defraud the people of Embu through pending bills. Those bills do not just find their way into the system. They are put there by county officers in collusion with the contractors,” Kajwang’ said.
“There has been a problem with outgoing governors and their officers inflating the pending bills register. We want to know to what extent that happened in Embu.”
Mbarire urged the committee to push for a policy to have the office of the auditor
“If you choose to pay everything then you will be left with nothing to actualise your manifesto,” she said.
She told the committee her administration inherited Sh532.6 million unremitted staff deductions but has managed to pay Sh372 million in the current fiscal year leaving a balance of Sh160.36 million.
“It is so clear that you have deducted money from employees but you have not remitted the same. That is stealing from your servants. This is unacceptable, unforgivable and is not subject to any discussion,” Kajwang’ said.
Wambora’s administration was flagged for paying Sh87.7 million as compensation of employees through a manual payroll system outside National Treasury’s Integrated Payroll and Personnel Database system.
There was also Sh59 million incurred on compensation of employees without approved supplementary estimates.
Further, the county government was fingered for recruiting unqualified employees who did not possess job qualifications.
The employees were paid Sh7.5 million salaries and wages during the year under review.
“An audit we carried out revealed that there were some people who were being overpaid, others were paid twice or five employees paid in a single account. We have done a lot of clean-up on our payroll in the last few months,” Mbarire said.
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