State House distances itself from Waititu’s spending

State House has distanced itself from claims that the County Government of Kiambu had allocated it Sh973 million for "coordination of State House functions".

Through a tweet, Chief of Staff Nzioka Waita noted that State House does not share any budgets with Kiambu County.

“Just for the record . @StateHouseKenya does not share any budgets with the County Government of Kiambu,” said Waita.

While appearing before the Senate County Public Accounts and Investment Committee (CPAIC), Kiambu Governor Ferdinand Waititu said he was shocked to learn that his administration spent Sh793 million on Free Primary Education, a national government function under a county vote head that had been allocated Sh804 million during the year.

The shocking audit queries led the Moses Kajwang’-led committee to order a fresh audit and a report tabled within 45 days. The queries are for the 2017-18 financial year.

But Waititu disowned two pages of the document showing the dubious allocations alleging that they could have been sneaked in by his political detractors out to tarnish his administration.

This is despite the financial statement documents being signed by two senior county treasury officials on September 28, last year.

“What I have seen is also new to me. I think it is a misuse of the national government template because nobody could have assumed that we have such figures in our county. Because we don’t have a budget for those things and therefore there is no expense at all,” Waititu replied.

“We have the signatures of the CECs. Where we take the responsibility is up to where the CEC signed. We cannot take the responsibility of what we don’t know. I will not bear the responsibility as the governor for something I don’t know. What I am seeing here from my senator and the other senators, is what I expected. They are trying to use politics to tarnish the name of my government.”

According to Waititu, his administration did not spend money on free primary education, personal emoluments to retired presidents and to the Kenya-South Sudan advisory activities.

He said the problem arose from “misuse of templates” of the national government by his finance department.