Controller of Budget Nyakang’o defends damning report on plunder in counties

Controller of Budget (CoB) Dr. Margaret Nyakang'o says a report from her office on funds use by counties that highlighted the lack of development related expenditure in some devolved units and the running of numerous accounts by others is factual.

Dr. Nyakang’o says the information in the report emanated from the counties. This comes after Governors had faulted her office for what they termed as inaccuracy, especially on development expenditure.

The first quarterly report of the CoB had flagged ten counties that did not spend any money on development under review. Dr Nyakang’o says she stands by her team’s report.

“Each of those figures have been verified thoroughly to ensure that the point we are reporting, granted every once in a while we may have a typographical error, that is as far as it goes…we report factual figures as confirmed by the counties and IFMIS,” she said in an exclusive interview with Citizen TV.

The release of the report of prompted Governors to defend their respective units over spending trends.

Council of Governors Chairperson Ahmed Abdullahi termed the report as “sensational and misleading,” downplaying concerns that some counties did not spend a penny on development as he said the National Treasury had not disbursed funds on time for the Financial Year in question

Dr. Nyakang’o however says all counties had received funds for the months of July and August, adding that it was upto the counties to decide how and where to spend these funds.

“Many counties could not access funds because they did not have a budget. Those that had a budget went ahead to apply it to those bills from last year, those who gave preference to recurrent budget over development then did not report on debt,” stated the CoB.

“But it is factual to say funds from June were released and in August funds were released, all counties had two months worth of revenue to share for quarter one.”

The report also raised issues concerning the multiple bank accounts that some counties have, but the Governors came out to justify this.

CoG boss Abdullahi said that multiple accounts, especially in the health departments, were operating within the law and were opened for purposes of revenue retention and expenditure since the counties have numerous health facilities.

According to Nyakang’o, there is no limit to the number of bank accounts a county can open and operate.

She said there are established accounts that are mandatory and domiciled at the CBK, but that the operational accounts are where the lines get blurred; she hence called for accountability and transparency.

“We must find out who is operating them, what was the purpose of the accounts?” She posed, while noting that multiple accounts could become conduits for corruption.

Nairobi was one of the ten counties flagged in the CoB’s report as having spent zero shillings on development during the period.

Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja has since come out to claim that his administration spent Ksh.844,184,929 on various development projects in the last five months.