Stalled project cost Kibaki State House Sh88.8 million

Retired President Mwai Kibaki whose regime has come under sharp scrutiny over expenditure in State House. [PHOTO: MBUGUA KIBERA/STANDARD]

NAIROBI, KENYA: State House under retired President Mwai Kibaki paid Sh88.8 million for a petrol station and a workshop that stalled just a month after construction began.

The mandarins also failed to properly explain how they spent another Sh56 million on fuel, oil and lubricants for the luxury vehicles that form the presidential motorcade.

The audit queries have set the stage for top officials at State House to be summoned before the powerful opposition-led Public Accounts Committee to explain how they used the money.

Those who are likely to be called to PAC are State House comptroller Lawrence Lenayapa, his deputy George Kariuki, and the senior accountants in the office. The Chief of Staff and Head of Public Service Joseph Kinyua is likely to lead that delegation to Parliament buildings, where the pending questions will all be thrashed out in the presence of the auditor.

The petrol station and workshop project was poised to cost the taxpayer Sh105 million, but according to the Auditor General Edward Ouko, the bureaucrats at State House paid the colossal amount – Sh88.8 million — for the very little work that had been done.

In January, the Auditor General sent a team of auditors to State House to find out if the petrol station and the workshop had been built and if the payment was commensurate to the work done but realised the project had “stalled”.

The bureaucrats failed to explain why they paid 85 per cent of the money yet the work done did not warrant such payments.

The next step for the auditor was to find out if the contractor had decided to make good and complete the project, or if State House had decided to recover the money that had been paid.  But that too hit a brick wall.

“It was not clear how State House had intended to handle the matter considering that the contractor has not been issued with a default notice and the process of recovery of liquidated damages had also not commenced...” the Auditor General notes in his report for the 2012-2013 financial year.

The project began on May 23, 2011 and was to last for a year but the auditor noted that “a review of contract details in January 2014 indicates that the contract stalled in June 2011”.

After going through the contract, the auditor general realised that the contractor did not table documents to show how he intended to execute the project.

“No evidence was provided to show that the contractor submitted a performance guarantee in accordance with clause 28 of the General Conditions of the Contract and that the guarantee had been recalled and discharged against uncompleted works,” the Auditor General said.

“In view of the foregoing, it was not possible to confirm the propriety of Sh88,826,396.00 paid without any certified works and whether State House got value for money in the said expenditure,” the auditor general’s report reads in part.

Those who are familiar with the operations at State House told The Standard that there’s a fuel pump where the high-end vehicles of the presidential motorcade get their fuel, and that for many of the repairs, the vehicles use the workshop at the General Service Unit Headquarters on Thika Road. Other major repairs are done by specific motor-vehicle dealers in Nairobi, who are pre-qualified to do the job for State House.

But it is not just the money for the petrol station and the workshop that the Auditor General has questioned. He also did not find evidence that Sh56 million for fuel, oil and lubricants was spent prudently.

“The expenditure has not been accounted for through work tickets, logbooks, monthly fuel returns, certified receipt bills and proof of acknowledgement of receipts of fuel drawn as required,” the auditor said.

“It has not been possible to confirm the propriety of the expenditure of Sh56,278,330.30 as at 30 June 2013,” he added.

The ball is now on State House’s court to meet the Public Accounts Committee in the National Assembly to explain how the money was used.

Those likely to appear before the PAC to answer the questions when the matter comes up for scrutiny are the State House comptroller Lawrence Lenayapa, his deputy George Kariuki, and the senior accountants in the office.

The Chief of Staff and Head of Public Service Joseph Kinyua is likely to lead that delegation to Parliament buildings.