Mutuini Hospital in Nairobi's Dagoretti South Constituency has been accused of spending Ksh 309,734 to purchase charcoal and cooking gas.
The hospital is said to have spent the money on the said items instead of buying emergency drugs which the funds were supposed to cater for.
Nairobi County Assembly Public Accounts Committee, led by Wilfred Odalo, grilled Finance Chief Officer Washington Makodingo and other officials from the hospital over the irregular expenditure.
Reports by The Standard explained that the committee was investigating an audit query raised by Auditor General Edward Ouko, who had highlighted that the hospital had collected revenue amounting to Ksh3.4 million but only Ksh3.1 million was banked.
“We have no problem with the hospital spending at source as long as they produce the vouchers. But what we have received today are only vouchers for the purchase of cooking gas. Do you mean all this money was only used to purchase cooking gas?” posed Karen Member of County Assembly(MCA) David Mberia.
Three 13kg cooking gas cylinders were differently priced at Ksh 10,800, Ksh 2,800 and Ksh 2,300 are said to have raised eyebrows.
Reports by MCAs Silvia Museiya and Moses Ogeto highlighted that they sought to know how cooking gas and charcoal fell under the category of emergency medicine and how cooking gas was bought four days apart.
Chief Officer Makodingo ran to the hospital's defense claiming that the cooking gas was used for maternity procedures at the public facility.
“Mutuini has maternity services which means they even do sterilization and that requires the use of cooking gas cylinders,” stated Makodingo.
However, the officials were unable to account for the remainder of the money which caused PAC Chairman Wilfred Odalo to demand that they appear before the committee again in the coming week and provide adequate evidence of the expenditure.
