Samburu governor-elect to inherit huge debts, high wage bill deal
Ex-MP Lati Lelelit Who has been elected Samburu Governor
Samburu Governor-elect Jonathan Lelelit is facing an uphill task running the county, which is debt-ridden with a huge wage bill.
Mr Lelelit won the seat under the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party, trouncing his closest challenger, Richard Lesiyampe (Jubilee), a former Agriculture principal secretary.
He will be sworn in on Thursday to succeed Moses Lenolkulal, who is retiring after serving two consecutive terms that are allowed under the Constitution.
Mr Lelelit will inherit numerous challenges from predecessor Mr Lenolkulal, including huge pending bills, a burgeoning wage bill, massive corruption and ghost workers.
For instance, the latest report by the Controller of Budget shows that the devolved unit is increasingly spending more of its allocations on salaries, wages, allowances and other employee benefits.
The report released recently shows that the amount the Lenolkulal administration spent on salaries and other personal emoluments was almost thrice what was spent on development in the first nine months of the 2021/2022 financial year.
The report from COB Margret Nyakang'o shows that Samburu spent a whooping Sh1.7 billion on recurrent expenditure in that period, while using only Sh604.05 million for development programmes.
"The wage bill of Sh1.77 billion includes Sh656.64 million attributable to the health sector, which translates to 37.1 percent of the total wage bill in the reporting period," the report said.
Ms Nyakang’o also faulted Mr Lenolkulal's administration for processing Sh255 million worth of salaries manually, contrary to the law, raising concerns about oversight pitfalls. The manual payroll amounted to 15.9 percent of the total personal emoluments, according to the report.
The report said the manual payments violated the law, which requires county governments to use the prescribed Integrated Payroll Personnel Database (IPPD), which is not prone to abuse.
"Personnel emoluments amounting to Sh1.35 billion were processed through the IPPD system, while those paid through [the] manual payroll were Sh255.17 million,” the report said.
“The government policy is that salaries should be processed through the IPPD system, and the county is advised to fast-track the acquisition of personal numbers for their staff."
The IPPD streamlines the payroll from duplications and other inefficiencies commonly found in manual management systems.
Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu also faulted the county for failing to account for about Sh6 billion it was allocated for the 2019/2020 financial year. She issued an adverse opinion against Samburu for failing to provide proper records on its financial usage for the year under review.
The adverse opinion raises the red flag that huge amounts of money could have been lost due to serious public finance management breaches, including loopholes in revenue and procurement systems and huge pending bills.
"The financial statements do not present fairly the financial position of the County Executive of Samburu as at 30 June 2020, and of its financial performance and its cash flows for the year then ended in accordance with International Public Sector Accounting Standards (Cash Basis) and do not comply with the Public Finance Management Act, 2012 and the County Governments Act, 2012," Ms Gathungu’s report said.
She outlined her basis for the adverse opinion, including discrepancies in the Management Report and Financial Statements, inaccuracies and mismanagement.
Samburu Finance executive indicated that the county had in the year under review budgeted for revenues totalling Sh5.6 billion. But, according to Ms Gathungu’s report, the balance differed with the revenue budget balance totalling Sh6 billion reflected in the statement of appropriation - recurrent and development - resulting in an unexplained variance of Sh430 million.
The auditor also exposed Samburu for making illegal payments to other government entities. The balance includes other capital transfers to wildlife conservancies totalling Sh93 million.
Ms Gathungu said the transfers were not supported by any legal framework or provision and there were no records of activities or expected outputs identified before the transfers were made.
Other irregular payments pointed out by the auditor include Sh46 million paid to the Samburu Water and Sanitation Company (Sawasco) and Sh3.3 million to the Council of Governors to help defray the council’s expenses during the year under review.
The governor-elect is rolling his sleeves to turn around fortunes in Samburu in several sectors, among them water and roads. Mr Lelelit vowed to “bail out” the county and set up good governing structures to benefit locals.
"I will be a governor for all. I know the challenges we are facing as a county but I am going to streamline all sectors to bail out the county's dwindling fortunes," Mr Lelelit said.
He will control about Sh6 billion in equitable share from the national government and other conditional grants.
On Monday, Chief Justice Martha Koome appointed Justice Hatari Waweru and Senior Principal Magistrate John Tamar to swear in Mr Lelelit as the new Samburu governor.
