A report by Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu ranked Nairobi and Kisumu among the six worst counties in terms of managing and reporting the use of public funds.
The counties got adverse opinions in the report, meaning that “the financial statements exhibit significant misstatement with the underlying accounting records”.
This is the third time the two counties have received adverse audit opinions due to their poor reporting on the management of public funds.
Other counties flagged in the report by Gathungu include Murang’a, Baringo, Narok, and Vihiga.
According to the Auditor-General, the six counties were unable to account for how they spent up to Ksh25 billion for the 2020/21 financial year.
Nairobi was ranked the worst with the county being unable to account for the usage of over Ksh20.9 billion.
This accounted for over 81 per cent of the public funds whose usage has been questioned.
According to the Auditor-General, while the county's statement of receipts and payments reflects total payments amounting to Ksh29.6 billion supporting documents for the expenditure amounting to Ksh9.8 billion were not provided for audit.
"In the circumstances, the accuracy and regularity of expenditure amounting to Sh9,773,095,233 could not be confirmed,” Gathungu noted in her report.
The Auditor-General also unearthed issues with the improvement of the Holo-Huma access road that cost the Kisumu County government over KSh5 million.
Gathuku noted that physical verification by auditors in November 2021 found that there were issues of poor workmanship on the drainage, resulting in part of the road being cut off.
Baringo County government, on the other hand, was put on the spot for spending Ksh11.5 million in August 2021 to buy seeds for distribution to residents despite an earlier warning by the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) that had forecasted the months of July, August, September, October, and November as a long dry spell with no rainfall.
"It is, therefore, unclear what guided the decision of the Management," the Auditor-General noted.
In Murang'a, Gathuku questioned how the county spent some Ksh1.4 billion while Marsabit governor was put under the spotlight for how he spent over Ksh60 million.
Only Kisii County got an unqualified audit opinion in 2020/21, while no county got a disclaimer of opinion.
This comes just a day after the Senate Committee on Devolution voiced concerns over huge County pending debts which they said were hindering service delivery.
