Analysis of Mombasa County Executive Audit Reports 2015/2016
Below is a summary of what we unraveled on how Mombasa County executive spent taxpayers’ money between 1st July 2015 and 30th June 2016:
- This report highlights a number of audit queries such as unsupported payments, unconfirmed bank balances and outstanding imprest among others.
- The Mombasa County management could not explain the unsupported expenditure (no supporting documents) to a tune of Ksh. 2.2 billion.
- Mombasa county management reported bank balances amounting to Ksh. 368.2 million in 12 bank accounts but would not avail relevant documents (bank statements, reconciliation statements etc) for auditing to confirm the validity of the bank balances.
- As at 30 June 2016 seven bank accounts of the defunct Municipal Council of Mombasa were still operational. This violates Section 119(2) of the Public Finance Management Act 2012. No proper explanation was given.
- The office of the auditor general had revealed an outstanding imprest amounting to Ksh. 134.8 million as at 30th June, 2016.
- Mombasa County collected Ksh. 714.3 million from property rates during the year under focus. The valuation roll used to bill plot owners had not been updated with new land sub-divisions while more than 4,000 plots had been registered in the name of owners who could not be identified.
- Audit report for the year ended 30 June 2016 revealed that total local revenue collected amounted to Ksh. 2.9 billion. Audit verification revealed that Ksh. 2.5 billion was transferred to County Revenue Fund. This means that a total of Ksh. 381.2 million was spent at source. This is a violation of Public Finance Management Act 2012.
- Further, Out of Ksh. 381.2 million which was not transferred to County Revenue Fund, only Ksh. 300.4 million was accounted for.
- An amount of Ksh. 46.1 million was remitted to National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) from Mombasa County budget. This is strange considering that NHIF should be deducted from the employees’ gross salary and not from the Mombasa County Executive budget.
- Ksh. 82.2 million was paid for garbage collection services. The auditors revealed that there was no weigh bridge at the dumpsite to confirm the weight thus payment was made per trip instead of tonnes.
- On garbage collection, there was no evidence of a register to confirm actual trips made per truck per day and the contract file was not available for audit since it had been taken away by the Ethics and Anti –Corruption Commission (EACC).
Let’s ensure that our counties do not repeat the same mistakes they made in the past. Speak to your elected leaders today and tell them you are watching every step they make in public finance management.
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