The Judiciary cannot account for Sh1.3 billion meant for construction of courts in four counties across the country.
Auditor General Edward Ouko has pointed to possible loss of taxpayers’ money in the building of the High Court in Turkana and magistrate’s courts in Embu, refurbishment of Narok and Mombasa courts.
There was no title deed of Embu High Court property worth Sh320 million or other ownership documents showing the land on which the premises stands, belongs to the Judiciary.
Further, management did not provide an update on progress made, on acquisition of the title documents of the multi-million shilling property.
In one of the possible massive loss of taxpayers money, the Judiciary paid a contractor Sh124 million even after he had clearly stalled at 27 per cent in the proposed High Court in Turkana County and Lodwar Law Courts.
Though the total construction that commenced on September 30, 2013 cost Sh814,986,141 and the expected completion date was April 20 2015, the Judiciary management has not provided documents showing how the contract was awarded, progress of work and measures taken against the contractor for failure to meet contractual obligations and mitigate against escalation of costs.
“In the circumstance, value-for-money has not been achieved on the expenditure of Sh124,462,230 incurred on the project before it stalled and further, enhanced public services expected from completion of the courts are yet to be realised,” reads the report.
In Mombasa courts, Dr Ouko noted the propriety and value-for-money of the expenditure of Sh54.6 million on refurbishment of Mombasa Court of Appeal building cannot be confirmed.
The report released a week ago indicates that, the contract was opague and at some point there was variation of Sh25 million from the original Sh29 million to Sh54 million, with the Judiciary indicating the contracted tender sum erroneous.
Even after variation, there was delay in the hand over of of the premises by the contractor of what the the Auditor General and County Government of Mombasa termed as poor performance by the contractor. Further the reports note, due to failure by the main contractor, it is doubtful whether two sub-contracts for electricals and renovation of toilets worth Sh10million and Sh2.5million respectively could not have proceeded. The Auditor General indicated that in Narok Law Court the Judiciary could not account for Sh90 million of tax payers through the expenditure of incurred on refurbishment of premises.
Auko noted that a company that had been awarded a tender in August 2007 to construct Narok Law Courts abandoned the site immediately after being paid Sh24,984,453. Not even a new contractor executed in the financial year 2014/2015 awarded the contract at a cost of Sh65,194,539 on September 22 2015 could move a thing and by the time audits were done nothing had been done.
Eight-year delay
To compound the situation, bore-hole drilling sub-contracted to another company at Sh6.5million that had been delayed by eight years were yet to be completed by the time of the audit and no plausible explanation has been provided. “Physical verification carried out on the site revealed that no works were going on in spite of the award to the new contractor,” said the report.
The report also raised queries on the Sh229 million construction of a five-story Embu Law Courts building through a contract agreement dated December 4 2014, though the Bills of Quantity (BQ) for supply, installation plumbing and electrical works worth Sh13 million as provisional expenditures to be incurred by the contractor.
And though the payments were made upon receipt of expenditure returns filed by the contractor confirming adherence to the various requirements and transparency in handling payments, audit review of the provisional expenditures revealed that out of the Sh13 million payments totaling Sh9,980,000 had the following anomalies.
“In view of the foregoing, the accuracy and propriety of provisional expenditure of Sh9,980,000 incurred on construction of Embu Law Courts building as at June 30 2016 cannot be confirmed,” reads the report.
