November 15, 2014 - Today's News In Gazetikenya

Exposed: Counties lost billions in looting spree

TERRORISM | Victims were forced to walk away from the bus before being killed

Twelve counties across the country lost billions of shillings in land, vehicles and other properties ahead of last year’s General Election that paved the way for devolution, a new audit report shows. The special audit by a team of experts from the Transition, exposes blatant looting of property that once belonged to the local authorities by public officials. The full extent of the theft across the country will be known when results from all the 47 counties are released next month. Auditors failed to locate records of some land parcels in Mavoko, Matuu, Masaku and Machakos. Machakos county council had parcels of land without corresponding legal documents while some of the parcels listed could not be located. The audit report notes that there were no clear handover mechanisms in Nyeri and this may have given room for mischief in the county.

On land, the audit says some parcels had unclear ownership. “The status of land especially that which falls under the former county council of Nyeri, needs to be interrogated further.’’ In Bungoma, a plot on which a residential house belonging to the municipal council was razed and subsequently developed by an individual, the audit shows. It also reveals that the existence of 34 vehicles could not be verified. In West Pokot, documents for at least 3,000 acres could not be produced. The land has been encroached on by individuals. Land for some Bomet markets like Mulot is registered in the name of individuals while in Narok, only nine vehicles were physically located but logbooks could not be traced. In Siaya, there were no documents for any of the county’s land parcels. Some had been developed by other government departments. The situation is the same at the Coast. Land for a number of health centres and schools in Mombasa was registered in the names of individuals. The report says two shares of the Mombasa Water and Sanitation Company were held by a former town clerk and mayor. In Voi municipality, the audit found 11 vehicle logbooks whose details were not clear. Though some creditors had been paid by the former Taita county council, there were no documents to show this.

The auditors said they were unable to ascertain the veracity of Tana River’s creditors who, as of March 27, 2013 had all been fully paid. The audit reveals serious violations in the keeping of records of public land, houses and vehicles that were then in the hands of local authorities, which have since been collapsed into 47 counties. Yesterday, Transition Authority chairman Kinuthia Wamwangi warned that those found guilty of corruption will face the full force of the law. “We don’t exactly know if the officials concerned just slept on the job or they were conspiring to defraud counties,” he said when reached for comment over the report. He said a forensic audit would be conducted to disclose how the offences of “omission and commission” were conducted. “It (forensic) will reveal whether crimes were committed and any actions to be taken.”

But Mr Wamwangi was clear that those found to be guilty of offences stood to be fined up to Sh10 million or a court sentence of seven years, according to the law. He said his authority had issued a moratorium asking officials in counties not to interfere with properties that existed in the previous local authorities until all records of assets and liabilities were audited. The countrywide audit came after the latest pilot study based on 12 counties showed how markets, houses and vehicles belonging to the local authorities changed hands to private individuals. So bad is the situation that the study calls for a forensic audit in most of the counties to establish what was handed over from all the local authorities.

Twelve study teams, consisting between four and six members drawn from the Transition Authority, Office of the Auditor-General, Ministry of Devolution and Planning, National Land Commission and Commission on Revenue Allocation conducted the exercise whose report is dated September 29, 2014. In Bungoma county, a large plot that was initially a residential unit belonging to a defunct local authority was razed only for an individual to erect a house he currently lives in. The audit found out that there were many parcels of land that belonged to the defunct local authorities without title deeds, in a case that made the process of transferring the parcels to the counties difficult. “This has exposed these plots to encroachment and court battles over ownership.” The auditors found that some of the computers containing vital asset registers had been vandalised while most laptops could not be located. “There were no comprehensive assets registers in most of the defunct local authorities,” the auditing team concluded. There are cases where the members of the authorities, says the report , are presumed to have taken laptops “and computers and never returned them”. Records on assets as well

Gazeti Kenya

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