Auditors Question Accuracy Of Sh85bn Expenditure By Magoha’s Team.
Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha is in the limelight once again for how his staff spent Sh85 billion in the 2020/21 fiscal year, with auditors questioning the accuracy of their data.
According to Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu’s latest report, the Ministry of Education did not follow financial management regulations, making it impossible for her to authenticate the information provided for auditing.
Her employees were denied access to the National Education Management Information System (Nemis), and many principals failed to acknowledge receipt of funds.
There were also suspicious school bank accounts and poor bookkeeping in general.
Ms. Gathungu claims that their inability to access Nemis prevented auditors from verifying and validating expenditures totaling Sh59.5 billion.
This violates Section 9(e)(i) of the Public Audit Act of 2015, which grants the Auditor-General unrestricted access to “all books, records, returns, reports, electronic or otherwise, and other documents.”
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Sh36.7 billion of the total was allocated to 9,024 secondary schools.
On the other hand, auditors were unable to confirm the number of students per school and county “at any time of disbursement.”
57 billion shillings.
In addition, the ministry provided over Sh57 billion in subsidies for the Free Day Secondary Education program.
Principals are required to upload an acknowledgment receipt into the system upon receipt of funds.
“None of the listed schools raised an acknowledgment receipt in the system. Further, the disbursement schedule included payments amounting to Sh137,084,111 made to 225 secondary schools whose bank account number format differed significantly from the format of bank accounts for banks supported by the national banking system,” states the report.
There were no confirmation receipts from the schools that benefited.
“It was therefore not possible to confirm whether the schools’ bank account numbers were correctly captured and the concerned schools received the funds,” Ms. Gathungu says.
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The Auditor-General also notes that Sh8,284,401 was disbursed to schools with the same bank account numbers despite the fact that the names and sub-counties of the institutions were different, indicating an error in the fund’s transmission. “
The anomaly, according to Gathungu, was not explained, and no evidence of refunds was provided to show that the error had been corrected.
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There were errors in the ministry’s records because 1,933 secondary schools were listed as having the same Teachers Service Commission identification numbers despite having different names and being in different sub-counties.
These schools received a total of Sh834,403,799.
The report also shows that Sh2,690,020 was disbursed to 12 primary schools in Nemis that shared the same bank accounts, implying that the disbursement was duplicated.
“No explanation for this discrepancy has been made,” the report states.
Ms Gathungu has also criticized the procurement and distribution of 2,040 computers to 200 schools in 47 counties. The equipment cost Sh199, 920,000 to purchase.
The ministry used an expired framework contract, and the supply was made eight months after the validity of the issued local purchase order expired.
“The basis for identification and selection of the benefitting schools was not documented and provided for audit review. Consequently, the management is in breach of the law,” states the report.
Auditors Question Accuracy Of Sh85bn Expenditure By Magoha’s Team.