The Controller of Budget, Margaret Nyakang’o, addressed Nairobi County when it was claimed that billions had suddenly disappeared from its bank accounts.
Nyakong’o claimed that the county had several bank accounts while appearing on Citizen TV’s Daybreak Show.
She said the funds, estimated to be worth over Ksh18 billion, were intended to be used to pay off outstanding obligations, but the budget controller claimed such was never the case.
“We discovered that Nairobi County has multiple bank accounts that collect money but never transfer it as required by law to the County Revenue Fund (CRF)
One of the highest paying streams of income, she said, is the liquor licensing fee, which she and her team discovered has its own bank account and never enters the CRF.
Nyakang’o revealed that Nairobi recorded only Ksh2.6 billion in tax collection for half a year while exposing the corruption in the county administration.
Nairobi would not even reach 30% of its Ksh18 billion revenue target if it only collected Ksh5 billion year, she said.
The budget controller indicated that although Nairobi was collecting the desired Ksh18 billion, the funds were not being properly accounted for.
The money gets collected, but it’s unclear where it goes. “We do feel that Nairobi can collect even a lot more than the Ksh18 billion,” she said.
Nyakong’o further disclosed how counties were stealing through unpaid bills by diverting the funds away from the original suppliers and into their own channels instead.
“Governors are replacing who receives compensation. A county creates a schedule and brings the suppliers who need to be paid to my office according to our system.
Sadly, the intended vendors never receive payment. She uncovered the fraud by saying, “Instead, once the money is in CRF, they pay other people different from what had been requisitioned.
The controller of budget explained that she needed access to the county’s bank accounts as well as automation of all systems for simpler monitoring in order to regulate that.
In an effort to speed up the process of paying outstanding invoices, Sakaja established a committee on January 16 to investigate the validity of various contracts that the previous administrations had issued.
The committee was entrusted with recommending which pending bills should be resolved to the Governor by April 2023.
