Garissa Governor Ali Korane on Thursday, October 8, appeared before the Senate Public Accounts and Investment Committee to answer to audit queries arising from the Auditor General's reports for the financial years 2015/2016, 2016/2017 and 2017/2018.
When responding to questions about his financial documents, Korane stated that they had been carried away by the floods as others were gutted by fire.
“In January 2018, there were serious floods which affected some of our documents and in the same year, the county was hit by fire," he stated.
The governor, who has being charged with embezzling Ksh233 million from the World Bank-funded Kenya Urban Support Programme, was later thrown out of the committee which was chaired by Kisii Senator Sam Ongeri.
“There is no way we are going to get the originals. Even what you have now are just copies,” Korane stated.
The governor added that most of the documents that had been presented in the senate were copies and not originals.
The County Public Accounts and Investments Committee stated that the governor was not taking seriously the issue at hand and indicated that the documents he had presented had glaring mistakes.
“I am looking at the responses and they are not even making sense. You are not taking our work seriously, "Narok senator Ledama old Kina stated.
A document signed by the auditor general indicated that some of the bidders had been disqualified for not providing manufacturers warranty certificates statement of catalogue and service manual.
“However, it could not be confirmed whether the same requirements were in the instructions to tenderers since bills of quantities of the bidders were not availed for audit review,” reads the audit report by former Auditor General Edward Ouko.
Additionally, the audit report indicated that the local purchase orders and store ledgers were not issued, hence, it was not possible to confirm what items had been supplied.
“There is no flow of the responses given by the governor. I think we give him another opportunity to be able to explain himself,” Nandi senator Samson Cherargei stated.
On his part, the embattled governor admitted to his mistakes and apologised for the 'confusion'.
It was my assumption that we were going to answer to the questions in the sequence sent to us by the committee,” he stated.
Senator Ongeri stated that it was difficult for the senate to make a ruling in the absence of the documentation.
"We want to give you time so that you come to us when you are prepared," Ongeri stated.
