ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru is in trouble after his ministry failed to account for over Kh3.2 billion dubious pending bills.
Auditor-General Edward Ouko has raised an alarm on the Ministry of ICT over Kh3.2 billion dubious pending bills.
In a report tabled in the National Assembly by Majority Leader Aden Duale, the Ministry’s Department of Broadcasting and Telecommunications could not provide proof for, or explain, how it incurred debts.
According to the reports, the bills were accrued from debts owed to local media houses for advertising services.
Speaking on the report, the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chair Opiyo Wandayi revealed that part of the bills totaling to Ksh633.7 million were listed without details of the supplier and could not therefore, be authenticated.
He further noted that in some instances, the bills indicated the year of supply but did not have invoices to show when the supplies were made.
Wandayi went ahead to give an example of a demand letter from the Nation Media Group indicated that it was owed Ksh597, 396,960 in advertising fees. But the figure in the department’s pending bills indicates that the media house is owed Ksh1, 197,108,548.
“The resulting unreconciled variance of Sh599, 711,588 was not explained. In view of the foregoing, the completeness, validity and accuracy of the pending bills could not be confirmed,” the report highlights.
Apart from the pending bills, Mr Ouko also questioned the Ksh1.5 billion in unsupported adjustments and inaccuracies in the department’s financial statements.
The ministry also failed to provide bank statements supporting the receipt of Ksh2.4 billion from the National Treasury.