Governor Sang defends payment of Sh202 million to KRA

Senate County Public Accounts Committee Chairman Senator Moses Kajwang'. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

"This is in line with the cash basis form of reporting, ideally, all the pending transactions which do not make for payment should be voided immediately to avoid erroneous figures piling up in the system, the system voiding rights is a reserve of the National Treasury, going forward, we recommend that these rights be granted to counties to enable continuous voiding on need basis," said Sang.

The governor informed the committee that to address the matter they have written a letter to the IFMIS Directorate to issue Nandi county with temporary voiding rights to enable them start system cleanup and requested for two weeks to report on the progress.

Sang was put to task to explain why 95 per cent of the county employees were from the dominant ethnic community in the county which was contrary to Section 7(1) and (2) of the National Cohesion and Integration Act, 2008 which states that, "all public offices shall seek to represent the diversity of the people of Kenya in employment of staff and that no public institution shall have more than one-third of its staff establishment from the same ethnic community."

He said the county is homogeneous, made up of almost one tribe with the non-dominant communities forming less than two per cent of the population as per the 2019 census statistics with most applications in response to job advertisements reflecting on this fact.

"Recruitment guidelines require the selection of qualified candidates from the applicants which in most cases are from the dominant community; the county addresses this challenge by ensuring that equity amongst all the wards in the county is adhered to during the recruitment process," said Sang.

The governor told the committee that diversity in terms of gender, marginalized groups and persons living with disabilities are key consideration to address challenges occasioned by homogeneity of the county with most of the employees hailing from Uasin Gishu, Trans Nzoia, Baringo, Elgeyo Marakwet and Kericho counties.