By Obegi Malack
obegimalack@gmail.com
Kajiado County Governor Joseph ole Lenku has blamed former finance officials for failing to co-operate with auditors.
The governor who appeared before the Senate’s County Public Accounts and Investment Committee (CPAIC) in Nairobi on Wednesday, 22 2021 accused the former officers Finance Executive Alais Kisota and Chief Finance Officer Sankaire Tima for allegedly failing to provide crucial documents to auditors.
In her report for the financial year ended 2018/19, Auditor General Nancy Gathungu raised issues about documents that were available, but were not handed over to the auditors when they made physical visits to the County headquarters in Kajiado.
Senator Ochillo Ayako (Migori) who is the committee chair had demanded to know why the county did not provide the documents.
“We cannot understand why these documents were not made available at the right time, yet they seem to have been in order. You were let down by your officers. In fact, do you know that an elephant is brought down by very small things,” said the committee chairman Ochillo Ayako.
Ayacko said the governor and the county officials risk a fine not exceeding Sh5 million or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years, or to both for failing to provide the documents.
The governor said he has since sent home the officials and reshuffled others. “I was forced to take administrative action against the former Finance Executive Alais Kisota and Chief Finance Officer Sankaire Tima for alleged errors of omission and poor engagement with the county’s external stakeholders,” he said.
Kisota was replaced by Michael Semera with Sankaire Tima’s position taken by Lekina Tutui. Kisota was moved to Gender, Tourism, Wildlife, Sports and Youth department with his chief officer Tima moved to Governor’s Delivery Unit (GDU).
The Auditor General also raised queries over why pending bills had shot up from Sh766 million in 2018 to Sh1.3 billion in 2019.