Senators now clear Governor Hassan Joho over audit queries

Mombasa Governor Ali Hassan Joho makes his point to the Senate Committee of Public Accounts and Investment at Parliament Buildings Nairobi. PHOTO: MOSES OMUSULA/STANDARD

NAIROBI: Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho earned rare praise from a Senate watchdog committee after successfully defending audit queries raised against his administration running into hundreds of millions for the 2013/2014 financial year.

Mr Joho, who only two weeks ago faced the wrath of the County Public Accounts and Investment Committee, for failing to produce documents to the Auditor General in good time to facilitate clearance of audit queries, appeared to win over the legislators after all his audit queries were marked as cleared by the auditors.

He will however have to wait for the committee chaired by Kisumu Senator Anyang’ Nyong’o to retreat and write its report, which will in turn be presented to the House.

Only then, will the county executive be off the hook over any financial malpractices.

Joho is now among few county bosses who have gone through the Senate watchdog grilling, with officers from the Auditor General’s office indicating that the issues raised against them had been cleared.
After yesterday’s session, Joho expressed satisfaction at the professional manner the Senate committee was handling the issues against governors, confessing that he initially feared he may not get a fair hearing.

“We thought some of your members had a pre-determined mind, but we are surprised at how professional the issues have been handled. We request that when you start dealing with queries relating to financial year 2014/2015, you list us among the first county government to attend,” said Joho.

Among committee members who have taken governors to task over accountability for funds allocated to their counties is Mombasa Senator Hassan Omar, who has expressed his intention to challenge Joho for the county’s gubernatorial race.

Committee members sought to dispel fears by governors, some of who have declined to appear before them, saying there was no ill agenda.

“It is unfortunate there has been suspicion that there is an agenda being propagated. But you are a witness that we have handled these issues without any drama, even if your senator is a member of this committee,” said Kiambu Senator Kimani Wamatangi.

“Our satisfaction is that money be spent prudently. We are bipartisan in our mandate,” Nyong’o added with committee vice chairman John Lonyangapuo (West Pokot) asking Joho to implore upon other governors, notably Kakamega’s Wycliffe Oparanya to reconsider and appear before them.

Mr Oparanya has since declined to honour invites and summons from the committee and moved to court to challenge the move.
Unlike in the last session when Joho was taken to task over a number of queries, yesterday he appeared before the Senate team armed with documents to prove that both the remaining audit queries and those marked as outstanding from the previous meeting had been cleared by the office of the auditor general in Mombasa. Yesterday, the county government defended itself against an expenditure of Sh15,139,639 flagged by the auditor as having been lent to county officers in IOU’s under unclear circumstances, with the County Executive for Finance Hazel Koitaba saying the money was paid to officers when the IFMIS system was not fully operational.

“We have since made efforts to recover funds from officers who did not refund the money. We now only have Sh682,039 which is remaining as unrecovered but we are making deductions on those holding it,” said Koitaba.

The executive said they had difficulties closing accounts held by the defunct local authorities after banks declined to take instructions from county officials to execute the directive, insisting that the same could only be done by the signatories on record.

Joho’s team however said they had resolved to commence proceedings to freeze the accounts, repatriate any funds in them and subsequently close them down.

The auditor had accused the executive of ignoring the directive by the now defunct Transition Authority to close bank accounts held by former local authorities by February 28, 2013 and instead continued operating them beyond June 30, 2014.

On the query that the county spent Sh6.5 million on casual labourers, some of who were engaged for more than three months without being absorbed, Joho said the decision was taken after they terminated KAPS Municipality contract, which had been contracted to collect parking fee.

Joho said the decision had paid off as the county government was now collecting in excess of Sh20 million yet they were only receiving Sh1 million a month when the services were contracted to KAPs.

“That is why we cancelled the contract. We were now getting per day what we were receiving in a whole month when the collection was under KAPs,” said Joho.