The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics(KNBS) is on the spot over irregularities in the payment of ShSh9.2 billion for the 2019 population and housing census.
Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu said about half of the Sh18.5 billion spent on the Kenya Population and Housing Census (KHPC) last year could not be sufficiently accounted for.
She raised concern over payment for census and security personnel, purchase of airtime, data bundles and SIM cards, short message service (SMS), M-Pesa payments to village elders as well as survey expenditure.
The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) is on the spot over irregularities in the payment of ShSh9.2 billion for the 2019 population and housing census.
Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu said about half of the Sh18.5 billion spent on the Kenya Population and Housing Census (KHPC) last year could not be sufficiently accounted for.
She raised concern over payment for census and security personnel, purchase of airtime, data bundles and SIM cards, short message service (SMS), M-Pesa payments to village elders as well as survey expenditure.
Ms Gathungu said the KNBS transferred Sh500 million in form of imprests to the Kenya Police Service to meet the allowances of security officers during the exercise.
The imprest amount of Sh499,817,500 was surrendered on June 4, 2020
“However, the basis for the transfer of Sh500 million was not supported by an agreement between the Kenya Police and the Bureau to inform the amount required for security,” Ms Gathungu said.
Interestingly, Ms Gathungu said the total amount included Sh10,072,000 as payment to non-security officers.
“The roles, names, details of the non-security officers and the reasons for their involvement in the census exercise was not explained or documented,” Ms Gathungu said.
She said the surrender documents did not contain the number of security officers that were deployed, their respective stations, days worked and the amount received by each officer.
“There were no daily attendance registers to authenticate the identity of officers that rendered the services at various locations as proof of participation and hence justification for payment,” Ms Gahungu said.
Ms Gathungu added there was no summary of the payment schedule breaking down the payments per region and station.
“Under the circumstances, the accuracy and validity of the security expenditure amount of Sh499,817,500 paid out as part of project expenses could not be confirmed,” Ms Gathungu said in an adverse audit opinion of the KNBS books of accounts for the year to June 2020.
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