Nairobi News

GeneralNews

Budget boss says county officials are extravagant


Nairobi County government is extravagant in its expenditure.

This is the verdict of a report by the Controller of Budget Mrs Agnes Odhiambo released this week.

She said Governor Evans Kidero’s administration spent Sh341 million to buy vehicles in the Financial Year ending in June.

A further Sh62 million was spent on organising conferences while hospitality and catering guzzled Sh26 million.

The ‘County Governments Budget Implementation Review Report’ looks at how counties spent money they collected and what was allocated to them by the national government.

Mrs Odhiambo said an additional Sh40 million went to training expenses and travels.

Another Sh258 million was used as sitting allowances for County Reps. This was against an annual allocation of Sh160 million.

“It resulted in absorption rate of 161.3 per cent. This overexpenditure implies the county used funds meant for other activities to pay sitting allowance,” the report said.

The Kidero administration spent Sh4.1 billion on personal emoluments, Sh1.8 billion on debt repayment and pending bills and Sh985.9 million on operations and maintenance.

The report also reveals that the county was yet to establish an internal audit unit.

“This resulted to non-compliance with the procurement law that saw the county make cash purchases above the stipulated limits. The county continued to spend locally collected revenue at source against the law. That money should be sent to the County Revenue Fund Account,” said the report.