The Governor James Nyoro-led Kiambu County government spent a whopping Ksh1.69 million on 11 high-end smartphones, an audit report indicates.
According to the audit conducted by Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu, the county made the irregular purchases in the 2019/2020 fiscal year.
The smartphones included 2 iPhone XS (Max) at a cost of Ksh198,440 each, an iPhone X at a cost of Ksh198,000, an Ipad at a cost of Sh170, 689, 2 Samsung S10s at a cost of Ksh146,160 each, a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and an Ipad Pro at a cost of Ksh145,000 each, and a Samsung Galaxy S4 at a cost of Ksh84,100.
“The list of whom the mobile phones were issued to was not provided for audit. The store records; S3, S11, S12, and S13 for the phones were not provided for audit. Therefore, it could not be confirmed whether the mobile phones were recorded/entered in the stores,” the report adds in part.
Auditor General noted that all the phones surpassed the Ksh80,000 cap recommended by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC).
The report titled ‘Management Letter’ was presented to the County Executive Committee Member for Finance Mburu Kangethe with the inscription, “the purpose of this letter is to bring to your attention the findings that were revealed during the audit.”
The audit report also revealed that the Kiambu county administration spent Ksh19.5 million on airtime during the financial year 2019/2020.
Auditor General Gathungu also flagged allowances paid to Kiambu MCAs and county staff, and stipends for attendees during public functions where over Ksh100 million is said to have been lost.
“The MCAs might have been paid allowances for meetings that were not existent…allowances paid were unbudgeted for and unjustified…double payment of allowances may happen as the MCA’s might also have been paid from the county assembly budget,” the report notes.
The auditor general’s report dated December 30, 2020, was authored by W.K. Kamula on behalf of Nancy Gathungu. It was reportedly supposed to remain a guarded secret but MCAs who have been unhappy with Governor Nyoro allegedly leaked the report on Monday evening.
