Parliament orders Treasury audit of Sh2.6bn stalled projects

Parliament has ordered the Treasury to undertake an audit of stalled national government projects to formulate measures to finance and complete them.

The National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has given the Treasury three months to put in place the audit team once the House adopts the Auditor-General’s report on national government’s books for the fiscal year 2016/17.

“The Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury should within three months of adoption of this report, constitute a national committee on stalled projects to undertake an audit with a view to formulating a policy framework and strategic measures on financing and completion of all the stalled projects,” said the Ugunja MP Opiyo Wandayi-chaired PAC in the report.

The committee said Sh2.55 billion worth of projects funded in the 2016/17 budget were either stalled or incomplete.

The committee accused the national government of incurring huge expenditure for projects, which had either stalled or remained incomplete for a long time even past their completion dates.

“In other instances, payments were made for work not done. This casts doubt on value for money for such expenditure. There are selected stalled and incomplete projects on which various government entities continued to incur a significant amount of public money,” Mr Wandayi said.

The unfinished projects are spread across ten ministries with the State Department of Prisons leading with Sh876.25 million that was meant for construction of staff houses.

The construction of the in-block irrigation project in Kimira Oluch, Homa Bay, worth Sh746.5 million has stalled under the State Department of Natural Resources.

Court projects worth Sh625.63 million have also stalled while the Sh117.9 million proposed National Employment Promotion Centre in Kabete is incomplete under the Department of Labour.

At the Department of Vocational and Technical Training, the proposed Lamu East Technical Training Institute (Sh38.08 million) and Kakrao Technical Training Institute in Migori (Sh48.72 million) are incomplete.