Nyeri Governor Nderitu Gachagua will today face the Senate to defend himself against accusations that saw him impeached by members of Nyeri County Assembly on September 2.
Members of the County Assembly (MCA) allege that Mr Gachagua has not been able to account for Sh1.7billion. The ward representatives are also accusing the governor breaching the constitution by running the county without a cabinet.
They also claim that the governor splashed Sh7 million to plant grass instead of investing in other vital sectors.
But it is the findings by the Auditor General’s for the year ending June 2014 that are set to provide the biggest test for the governor who is the latest county boss to face the senate after impeachment. In the report, Mr Edward Ouko says that the county government reallocated Sh740 million from development to recurrent vote without following laid down procedures.
NO IT POLICY
His government also made a payment of Sh1.3 million for supply and installation of a fleet management and tracking system of 30 Motor vehicles.
“However, it was observed that the county did not have a system control centre for monitoring the vehicles and therefore the system could not be confirmed to be working. The County Government may not have got value for money from this project,” the report adds.
Gachagua’s government is also accused of not putting in place an approved IT policy, strategic plans and polices to guide the County on Information Technology in to improve on delivery of services to the public.
Mr Ouko also said that Nyeri had not constituted an internal audit committee as at the time of audit to review internal audit reports of the executive and ensure implementation of their recommendations.
“During the period under review, the County Government of Nyeri opened a revenue account with a local bank to deposit all revenue collected after having closed a similar account with another local bank. Approval for opening the said bank account was not availed for audit review,” the report notes.
“The agency agreement made available for audit between the County Government and the bank where the new account was opened, on the operations of the account was not dated and hence not possible to know when the contract was executed,” the report adds.
The Nyeri County Government operated seven bank accounts during the year under review. However, it was noted that the cashbooks were not checked by an authorized officer.
EQUIPMENT MISSING
“Further, the cash books were balanced using pencils and had many alterations and cancellations and payments were cleared by the bank without being posted in the cashbook,” the report adds.
Nyeri County also made payments totaling to Sh10.9million without any or appropriate supporting documents. Mr Ouko notes that in the circumstances, the propriety of this expenditure could not be confirmed.
Mr Ouko also found that the Ministry of Health headquarters issued medical items worth Sh472 million to be used by the new Othaya hospital which was under expansion at the time. However, the expansion has since stalled and the contractor abandoned the site. Some of these items were stored at the CDF hall where it was reported that items valued at Sh12.6 million were missing.
Governor Gachagua was impeached on February 2 after 35 MCAs voted in favour of his removal. The impeachment motion had been tabled amid previous unsuccessful attempts to reconcile the governor and the MCAs.
Gachagua survived a previous impeachment motion by the assembly but it is his first time that he will be facing the senate.
Governors impeached in the past were later cleared by the senate.
