Wajir County on the spot over Sh825million irregular procurement

Wajir County is on the spot over Sh825 million irregular procurements.

Auditor General Nancy Gathungu has unearthed more than Sh1.5 billion unaccounted expenditures by the county officers.

In the report tabled in Senate, Gathungu exposed how the county government violated procurement laws, dished out tenders to select companies and exaggerated prices.

The report shows that the county officials split contracts to avoid open tendering in an apparent plot to favour certain companies.

According to Gathungu, the officials split the contract to ensure the procurement falls within the request for quotation threshold “in order to defeat competition for the contracts”.

“It was not noted that works of similar nature within the same project locality were split and awarded to different contractors and in some instances to the same contractor,” the report reads in part.

Some of the companies were less than one year, with some lacking requisite experience to do works or supply the goods or services.

In her report, Gathungu cited a contract worth Sh247.64 million awarded for procurement of works, goods and services.

Gathungu also flagged the expenditure of Sh105.25 million on procurement of Covid-19 items.

She termed the procurement as irregular after the audit established that the county breached several provisions of the procurement laws.

The county employed direct procurement in the acquisition of the items.

Additionally, the county is also accused of procuring medical equipment worth Sh29.87 million through a request for quotations.

However, contracts for the medical equipment were split to defeat the use of open tender.

“Verification of the prices charged for some of the items revealed that the prices were highly inflated compared to the prevailing market prices,” the Auditor noted.