Kidero: It is not possible to steal county’s Sh20bn
Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero has rubbished the 2014/2015 Auditor-General’s report on the county, saying it was impractical to misappropriate Sh20 billion.
Speaking at City Hall on Monday, the governor said the county’s operations would have been paralysed had the money been stolen, as alleged in the report.
It would have been impossible to pay the workers and finance development, he added.
“I am amazed by this report,” said Dr Kidero. “It’s not possible for the county to misappropriate all the revenue it has.
IMPRACTICAL
“The report from the auditor is impractical.”
Dr Kidero said the interpretation of the report would mean that the county had misappropriated all the revenue collected as well as the funds it gets from the national government.
In the 2014/2015 financial year, the city county collected Sh11 billion and received Sh12 billion from the national government, a total of Sh23 billion, said Dr Kidero, stating that if Sh20 billion had been looted, it would not have been possible to pay the workers.
He faulted the Auditor-General, saying that the county has been paying Sh18 billion to its workers, with an operational expenditure of Sh6 billion and hence the amount cited was erroneous.
Dr Kidero added that the report of the Controller of Budget for the same year had also stated that City Hall had spent Sh8 billion on development, exceeding the Sh3 billion said to have remained after the usage of Sh20 billion that was not accounted for.
DEFENDED E-PAYMENT
He also defended the e-payment system — where the report had stated it was not possible to ascertain how much revenue the county collects every year since City Hall had no control over the fund and had only relied on what is provided to it.
“We have full control over the system. We have visibility of the system and we do reconciliation reports of the system weekly,” said Dr Kidero.
“The notion that we do not have control is misleading. All our collections that go through the system can be seen by everybody.”
He also defended each project that the Auditor-General queried in his report.
On the legal fees by law firm Momanyi and Associates, he said it was paid Sh60 million for a case filed by Mr Ferdinand Waititu seeking orders to restrain the county from evicting residents of Blue Estate at Shauri Moyo.
CANCELLED PAYMENTS
The county cancelled the payments as they were doubtful and the case is before a committee, which is yet to determine the validity, he explained.
On the drilling of a borehole at Pumwani Maternity Hospital at a cost of Sh3.9 million, which was said to be incomplete, Dr Kidero said that the water supplied to the hospital was from the borehole and that the deaths of children had reduced due to availability of water.
The Sh437 million surveillance camera project was not initiated by the county, but by the defunct Nairobi Metropolitan ministry, the governor explained, adding that the CCTV cameras were functional and currently in use.
