MPs summon Auditor General Ouko over State agency audit queries

Auditor General Edward Ouko

NAIROBI: Auditor General Edward Ouko has been summed by the Public Investment Committee (PIC).

The committee wants Mr Ouko to explain why an officer with a conflict of interest was allowed to audit Tana and Athi River Development Authority (Tarda).

MPs also summoned senior auditor David Njoka to explain why he did not declare interest on Tarda after having worked there for 15 years.

While appearing before PIC to answer to audit queries, Tarda Managing Director Stephen Githaiga accused Mr Njoka of having a personal vendetta against him after he refused to clear Njoka's wife, who was also working in the organisation, of financial impropriety issues.

"I and the management of Tarda take great exception to the manner in which Njoka, who was working in this authority before he went to Kengen and later to Kenao (Kenya National Audit Office), personalised the auditing exercise of the year and even attempts to do today," Mr Githaiga said.

He said Njoka took a loan from Tarda Sacco and disappeared without paying it and when he was asked to pay it back he refused and started threatening the Sacco management.

Githaiga said Njoka was working with his wife, Lucy Kinyanjui, in the organisation when he was at the audit department and the wife at the accounts section and when the wife was dismissed for deserting work, Njoka wrote a threatening letter to the former managing director Francis Agoya.

"When he (Njoka) came to me to ask me to clear the wife, I refused when I realised that she had some queries and that was the beginning of my woes," said Githaiga.

board approval

On employment, Ouko claims the acting MD approved recruitment and signed appointment letters for 37 employees from the date of his appointment in April 2013 up to the time of reporting without seeking the Treasury or the board's approval as is required of State officials who are not substantively confirmed as  managing director.

In his audit of Tarda's books of accounts for the financial year ended June 30, 2014, Ouko said the total basic pay for the 37 workers for the period under review amounted to Sh13 million.

Githaiga said the employment was a confirmation of the employees who had been casuals and it was meant to replace staff who had either retired or left the company for different reasons. "I confirmed the employees who had worked at the organisation as casuals for between six to 20 years, and there was an increase in the cost of salaries," he said.