The Government lost a whopping Sh1 billion in fabricated pending bills during the 2017/18 financial year.
The said bills were made in the name of clearing historical pending bills. Correctional Services Principal Secretary Zeinab Hussein made the revelations during a sitting with the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
The committee wanted the PS to explain the irregular payments that were flagged by Auditor General Nancy Gathungu in her report on the audited accounts of the state department of the financial year 2019/20.
According to the audit report , Sh555.65 million was paid for fictitious supplies.
Another Sh419 million, the Principal Secretary said were overpayment to supplies made to various prison stations across the country.
PS Hussein was speaking on Wednesday when she appeared before the Opiyo Wandayi led committee.
The committee is examining the audited accounts of the department for the financial year 2019/20.
The department has now been asked to provide a list of the individuals who got paid for supplying nothing and those who were overpaid.
Already, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission is at an advanced stage of probing the crime.
“We started the investigations last year,” a detective based at the anti-graft body said.
The department has been tracking historical outstanding claims accrued between the financial years 2011/12 and 2017/18 with a view to paying all eligible suppliers and contractors duly owed for goods supplied and or services rendered to the Kenya Prisons Service.
The department hosts 129 correctional institutions out of which nine are maximum-security prisons where the suppliers provide a variety of items ranging from foodstuffs among others.
According to the Auditor General reports, the State Department owed the suppliers close to Sh6.2 billion, dating back from 2009.
Government had over the years been adamant to clear their payments owing to unverified cases which the majority of the cases were deemed to be unproven.
“We inherited these pending bills only to discover that they had anomalies,” PS Hussein said.
But committee is wondering why the anti-graft body is yet to make any recommendations, 12 months late.
“This is a fairly old issue but no serious head has rolled over these acts of commission and omission. We are looking at the possibility of the government losing Sh1 billion,” PAC chairperson Wandayi said.
He asserted that, “We need the names of the characters who got paid for supplying hot air to the government.”
Garissa Township Member of Parliament Aden Duale demanded that the EACC Chief Executive Officer Twalib Mbarak be summoned to explain the lack of action.
“The amount went out to the people who did not deserve it yet the EACC is taking its sweet time for a matter that was reported more than a year ago. We need to call the commission CEO to come here and explain why the long delay,” the vocal Garissa Township legislator asserted.
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