The Senate Committee on County Public Accounts, on Monday, subjected Uasin Gishu County Governor Jonathan Bii to a grilling session in connection with Ksh654 million county funds that remain unaccounted for.
During the session, the senators directed Bii to submit a schedule detailing how the county spent the missing funds in the financial year 2022/23.
The governor, who was appearing before the committee to answer for discrepancies originating from an audit report by the Auditor General, failed to provide a reconciliation statement indicating how the money was spent.
“You need to provide a schedule detailing how the Ksh654 million was spent. Failure to do so, we shall leave this committee with no option but to conclude that the funds have been stolen,” Moses Kajwang', who chairs the Committee, instructed the governor.
The disparity in the usage of the funds was discovered when the receipts of the revenue accounts only indicated that the county received Ksh9.3 billion during the financial year 2022/23.
However, the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) revealed that the county’s transactions totaled Ksh9.9 billion, translating to a disparity of the Ksh654 million.
In his defence, the governor told the senators that the extra Ksh648 million was a result of a carryover from the previous regime that reigned during the 2019/20 financial year and that he had carried a reconciliation of all historical debts that would be captured in the financial report of the 2024/25 financial year.
The senators found this explanation unsatisfactory noting that governments exist in perpetuity and as the governor, he needed to be privy of all activities in his county whether he had been in office or not.
“You are the Governor and you can't tell us about you not being in office,” Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna stated.
The governor was also on the hook to explain why his administration paid a law firm Ksh6.2 million for representing the County in a mediation process whose total value was Ksh40 million.
This high amount was shocking to the senators as the matter was handled virtually in a platform that did not allow parties to meet, which would reportedly have decreased the amount charged significantly.
According to the Advocates Remuneration Order, the value of the subject matter is calculated to include; a fee for getting up and preparing for trial which is one-quarter of the instruction fees, a fee for preparing court documents which is chargeable per page, and a fee for perusing correspondence.
