Defunct councils face State audit

By EDWIN CHESEREK

The Government will conduct a three-month audit of the defunct local authorities’ assets to establish genuine debts to be inherited by central and county governments.

This follows hurried debt accumulation and irregular disposal of public properties by outgoing civic authorities, weeks to transition to devolved governments.

The Transition Authority (TA) recently recommended a thorough audit of all State assets across the country. The audit will see chief officers and councillors punished if found to have misappropriated public funds and property.

Auditor General Edward Ouko said the audit would be conducted in conjunction with TA.

“It is a massive exercise that will need to incorporate other Government accountants with relevant expertise to come up with credible findings,” he said.

Mr Ouko, however, said the time taken to conduct the audit would depend on the availability of resources. Mr Simon Pkiyach, a member of TA, confirmed the Auditor General had been given the mandate to conduct the exercise to ascertain whether civic bodies misused Government resources.

“The Auditor General ought to have embarked on the exercise as from March 4, after the General Election was conducted to pave way for the devolved governments,” Pkiyach told The Standard.

Some county governments through their elected Governors have said they would repossess State property sold to individuals by local authorities in the jurisdictions.

Assets and bank accounts

Consequently, those who purchased the property should be ready to bear loses after TA maintained the alleged transactions did not follow the laid down procedures of disposal.

Pkiyach said local authorities failed to take sufficient legal advice they received in relation to the disposals. He explained the audit would cover the assets and bank accounts of the local government and the auditors would come up with a report on the findings.

The county and national governments, he said, would inherit genuine debts at certain agreed percentages while individuals who might have misused State funds and properties would be made to shoulder the extra burden. He, however, declined to disclose the amount and the value of property alleged to have been misused by the authorities in the run up to the polls. “That can only be done when the property and money allocated to all councils are clearly audited by the relevant Government departments,” he added.

He disclosed that preliminary inspections by TA established councils hurriedly sold property to private developers without following due process as provided by the law.