Governor Anne Waiguru has asked the Senate to investigate and compel the National Treasury to explain circumstances under which 14 counties generated erroneous documents that misrepresented their spending in the 2017/18 financial year.
The Auditor-General’s reports faulted the county executives of spending hundreds of millions of shillings on functions in which they lack jurisdiction.
However, the governor, whose Kirinyaga County is among the 14, strongly denied that her administration had allocated and spent money in functions outside her jurisdiction.
She challenged the Director of Integrated Financial Management Information System (Ifmis) to come clean.
“The National Treasury must explain who designed this system and for what purpose. I suspect that somebody within the National Treasury created a faulty template for reasons that I can only conclude that are malicious,” she said when she appeared before the County Public Accounts and Investments Committee on Monday.
In Kirinyaga, the Auditor-General faulted Ms Waiguru for allocating Sh180 million for primary school education, Sh37 million for secondary school, Sh344 million for State House affairs, Sh50 million to rail transport, Sh3.4 million for marine transport and Sh851 million for government clearing services.
The governor claimed the system had been manipulated by those in the National Treasury noting that it had been reconfigured to generate two reports on Kirinyaga. She challenged the committee to compel the Ifmis director to explain who tampered with the system.
“Is somebody within the National Treasury trying to reallocate county budgets without the knowledge of the counties? They have created a template that has caused this confusion,” she said.
The chairman of the Senate Public Accounts and Investment Committee Moses Kajwang demanded to know from her whether Ifmis was fit for the purpose and whether it should be abandoned for another option as nearly all counties had recorded challenges with the system.
She challenged the committee to compel the Ifmis director to explain who tampered with the system.
“Is somebody within the National Treasury trying to reallocate county budgets without the knowledge of the counties? They have created a template that has caused this confusion,” she said.
The chairman of the Senate Public Accounts and Investment Committee Moses Kajwang demanded to know from her whether Ifmis was fit for the purpose and whether it should be abandoned for another option as nearly all counties had recorded challenges with the system.
