Nyandarua MCAs split committee meetings into two 45-minute sittings a day to ensure they attained the maximum sittings of eight per week in order to earn more allowances, the Auditor General has revealed.
Auditor General Edward Ouko said plenary attendance register for the period starting July 1, 2014 to September 2015 was not made available for audit review.
"This was despite the fact that the assembly was in session. Therefore, the expenditure incurred during this period could not be confirmed," Mr Ouko said in a report.
The report further flagged the expenditure of Sh7.8 million by five Members of the County Assembly Service Board as sitting allowances.
The auditor established that the expenditure was excessive considering four of the members are also members of various committees of the assembly where they draw sitting allowances.
"The propriety of the sitting allowances could not be confirmed. During the year under review, the county assembly budgeted for Sh50 million for domestic travel and subsistence allowances," Ouko said.
"However, they ended up consuming Sh59.2 million leading to an over expenditure of Sh9.3 million above the budget ceiling," he added.
He noted that no supplementary budget and authorisation was provided for the over expenditure.
On further scrutiny of the domestic travel vote, the auditor established that Sh5.2 million might have been misused because the documents provided for audit review showed overlap dates of travel, expenditure on weekends and in sufficient documentation attached on vouchers.
And the county assembly paid Sh1,316,544 to MCAs while accompanying teachers or advisory centre tutors on an education tour to Rwanda, from September 15 to 25, 2014.
Ouko said although members paid Sh240,000 to hire a bus for the trip, no travel documents or copies of the MCAs' passports were attached to the payment vouchers to confirm that they actually made the trip and crossed the border.
Further, he revealed that the money used was for domestic travel and not foreign as indicated in the documents provided for audit.
By the time of the audit, the MCAs were still withholding imprests to run their respective ward offices amounting to Sh12.3 million, which had been backdated to June 2014 but had not been surrendered on or by June 30, 2015.
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