Senate demand forensic audit over bulge of pending bills to Sh6.5billion in Wajir County

The Senate County Public Accounts Committee (CPAC) has raised queries over the outrageous bulge in pending bills from Sh1billion to Sh6.5billion in just two months at Wajir County and called for immediate forensic audit into the alleged questionable expenditures.

They contend that the figures are highly questionable.

This comes even as an additional Sh1.5billion was declared as a pending bill which was a statutory deduction from the county employees that the county failed to remit.

Appearing before CPAC, embattled Wajir governor Ahmed Abdullahi revealed previously audit reports could have been fraudulent.

“If an audit has been done as of June 30 2022, and the liability is Sh1billion, an election happens in August, and Governors are sworn in the middle of August, how do I get a report that the pending bill is Sh5.5 billion, its either that the report of assumption is completely fraudulent or that the audit has understated the liabilities.” Abdullahi said.

CPAC chairperson Moses Kajwang called for the Office of the Auditor General to investigate the authenticity of the pending bills saying that governor Abdullahi task force to investigate the pending bills is conflicted.

“We have fallen short of declaring Wajir County a crime scene because we should have a forensic audit. We have the option to encourage you to carry the effort of investigating the pending bills but we must ask the Auditor General and EACC to handle the audit.  You must first charge the Sh1.5billion statutory funds that were deducted and not remitted by the end of July.” Kajwang said.

In 2021, Former Wajir Governor Mohamud Abdi Mohammed was impeached with the Deputy Governor Ahmed Muktar taking over as the county boss.

The High Court has stopped the Controller of Budget (CoB) from releasing Sh2billion to clear pending bills in Wajir County.

Court orders were informed by the fact that Muktar and Mohamud were both in office after the impeached governor was allegedly reinstated by the courts.