Nandi Governor At Pains To Explain Why Kshs 2.3 Billion Was Not Spent By The County

The Nandi County government failed to spend Kshs 2.3 billion in the 2017/2018 financial year, a situation likely to have stifled delivery of service to the residents of the county.

These details emerged during a County Public Accounts and Investments Committee hearing as the senators questioned governor Stephen Sang over audit queries raised by former Auditor General Edward Ouko in the 2017/2018 financial year.

The report states that the county government of Nandi did not utilise Kshs 1.3 billion allocated for development and Kshs 1.01 billion for recurrent expenditure.

According to the report, Finance, Economic planning and ICT, Youth, Gender, Sports and Social Services and office of the governor and his deputy did not utilise their allocation at all.

The Finance department had been allocated Kshs 117.67 million, Youth Kshs 58.5 million and the office of the governor and his deputy Kshs 13 million.

Governor Sang argued that the under-utilisation was caused by delayed budget approval process.

"The county assembly approved the 2017/2018 budget estimates with a number of errors which led to the Office of the Controller of Budget rejecting the budget", he said.

Consequently, his administration had to prepare a new budget altogether and it was approved in November 2017.


The committee was not satisfied with the governor's response and piled pressure on him to explain why the residents of his county had to be denied crucial services.

"The people of Nandi did not get value for money that was allocated in the 2016/2017 financial year because Kshs 625 million in the CRF account was carried forward. Again in 2017/2018 there was under-absorption. You have made roads impassable because of under-absorption in roads and transport. That is why you are using imprests to wash your car", posed Nandi senator Cherargey.

According to governor Sang, though the allocated funds were under-absorbed, there were several projects that were ongoing in the county though they were yet to be paid for because the projects had not reached completion.

It was also revealed that the administration under the leadership of the county chief had not recovered imprests worth Kshs 758,280 during the year despite the law being clear that recoveries be made within 14 days.
The governor said at the time of the audit, the imprests register had not been updated and the surrenders had not been attached to the imprest warrants.