How Waiguru’s staff blew money on TV and condom dispensers
Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru is in a spot after fresh revelations that her ministry could have lost up to Sh11 billion due to inflated costs.
The expenses were discovered Tuesday as the Parliamentary Accounts Committee scrutinized the ministry’s thick file of replies to the queries raised in the Auditor-General’s report on the government’s accounts for the 2013/2014 financial year.
The Auditor-General had queried the ministry’s failure to spend the Sh11 billion it had budgeted for in the 2013/2014 financial year.
It had spent Sh8 billion but had not provided payment vouchers and a register of assets.
Here are some of the curious spends by the ministry:
1. Supply and installation of a touch screen in her office at a cost of Sh1.798 million.
2. Computers, a printer, telephone headsets and a water dispenser at a combined cost of Sh1.4 million.
3. Huduma Kenya Secretariat paid Sh174,000 for 20 blue, fine-tipped ball point pens, meaning each was bought at Sh8,700.
4. Bought a photocopier machine at Sh1.4 million.
5. 45 external hard disks at Sh11,102 each.
6. A laptop bought for Sh206,000.
7. 18 tailor-made clear male and female condom dispensers at Sh25,000 each.
8. Corel Draw software for Sh3.4 million.
9. A computer and personal laptop for Sh1.1 million.
10. Carpets at Sh3.8 million.
11. Anti-virus software that can be bought at Sh75,000 in the open market but supplied to the ministry at Sh973,780
12. Adobe In Design CS6 software at Sh1.9 million while it can be bought at Sh160,000.
13. The directorate also bought a Yamaha Piano for office use at Sh235,500.
14. In one case, the ministry bought one shredder for Sh64,750 and on the same day bought three others for Sh930,000, meaning it paid more than four times the cost of one for the second lot.
15. In November 2013, the Huduma Kenya Secretariat paid Sh242,500 for 100 4GB flash disks, meaning it paid Sh2,425 for a flash disk that ordinarily costs Sh500 on the open market.
