Auditors probe Sh300 million loss in Munyes CDF kitty

Auditors probe Sh300 million loss in Munyes CDF kitty

MONDAY, 13 AUGUST 2012 08:44 BY MATHEWS NDANYI

AUDIT: Labour minister John Munyes addresses wananchi during this year’s Labour Day celebration at Uhuru Park. Photo/Philip Kamakya

Auditors have been sent to Labour Minister John Munyes’s Turkana North constituency to probe the alleged misuse of more than Sh300 million Constituency Development kitty. The CDF National Management Board has dispatched the auditors after they discovered the misuse during an inspection tour last week. The directors discovered that millions of shillings have been invested on ghost projects. They spent many hours searching for the projects.

The board’s director Ahmed Abbas said the excessive misuse of the cash should not be left unpunished. He said more than 80 projects listed as having been completed cannot be traced. Abbas said there is evidence of the misuse and that in one incident, more than Sh2 million was used to construct two toilets at Nakalele Primary School.

Officials of the CDF kitty in the area who had accompanied the directors during the tour escaped from the entourage when they were questioned on the misuse of the funds. “All procedures in relation to how the CDF projects are handled were violated by CDF officials in Turkana North and there is no evidence of how tendering or award of contracts was done”, said David Koros, a director of the CDF board.

Abbas said the board is yet to such an extreme misuse of so much funds in the more than 100 constituencies they have visited for assessment. “It is shocking how the officials involved have taken advantage of the community here,” said Abbas. None of the CDF projects started in the constituency since 2008 have been completed with more than Sh700 million having been disbursed to the area.

At the Kakuma Health Centre, the directors discovered that more than Sh20 million said to have been spent on the project could not be accounted for and the actual work already done on the hospital is estimated at not more than Sh1.5 million. The board will stop the disbursement of Sh150 million allocated to the constituency in this year’s budget. The vast constituency is located on the border with South Sudan. Munyes is yet to comment on the matter.