On Monday, Baringo Governor Benjamin Cheboi was called out for his 'lazy' responses to concerns raised by the Auditor General's reports.
While appearing before the Senate's County Public Accounts Committee, Cheboi was unable to satisfactorily respond to concerns about how Ksh792 million was spent.
The Governor had appeared before the Committee to respond to audit queries for the financial statements of the county Executive for the 2020/21 and 2021/22 financial years.
According to the committee, the documents produced by the governor did not support the expenditure of the Ksh792 million. This left the Senators concluding that the money was stolen or misappropriated.
Additionally, the governor allied to the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) was on the spot for failing to provide documents to support the county balance estimated to be at Ksh2.3 billion.
Led by Homa Bay Senator Moses Kajwang, the committee was disappointed by the responses and gave him 21 days to submit to the Office of the Auditor General refined reactions on the issues raised.
"The documents you have annexed do not make sense. This is because of the laziness of your responses that do not discuss the issues. You have failed to prove that the funds allocated to Baringo County Executive in the two financial years were put to good use," the chairman remarked,
Besides the amount mentioned, the committee also questioned the county budget which was approved by the County Assembly. Per the Senators, the assembly approved a budget of Ksh7.9 billion but the funds were reduced by Ksh7.8 billion.
The governor explained that this was a result of the failure to carry out the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) auto-reconciliation.
"We have since identified staff to be trained and liaised with the National Treasury to capacity build the identified staff," he stated.
Cheboi also acknowledged his mistakes with the responses given. He assured the committee that he would take the necessary action and deal with the officers involved in preparing the financial statements for failure to submit supporting documents.
"It's negligence on their part but I can assure this committee no money was lost. I will personally work with the auditor general to ensure that we resolve these issues," he added.
Senator Kajwang asked the governor to submit to the Auditor General or the committee will be forced to ask the National Treasury to stop the disbursement of funds to the county.
