Nairobi — The government audit on the Free Primary Education is ready and will be presented to the Treasury on Friday, a parliamentary committee heard on Tuesday.

The Deputy Auditor-General Alex Rugera told the Public Accounts Committee that the report will first go to Treasury and thereafter be presented to Parliament for discussion.

PAC vice chairman, Dr Julius Kones said the audit was important to ensure that the Sh100 million query raised by donors was indeed legitimate and to help the public understand the depth of the saga.

"We do not want to base our reports on rumours. We want the facts," said Dr Kones.

The beleaguered Education permanent secretary, Prof Karega Mutahi, said he was ready to give the committee the true picture of what happened to the free learning money.

"I will be more than happy to come and talk about these things before you...because I know you deal with facts," said Prof Mutahi.

The PS had lamented that there was a "colonial mentality" among Kenyans when it came to donor money, to an extent that "even in a project fully funded by Kenyans, people think it is not the taxpayer footing the bill."

He said donor money only catered for five per cent of the free learning budget and that it was unlikely that the much touted suspension of funds would cause serious harm to the programme.

Prof Mutahi said "politics was a major problem" in the running of Education in the country.

He tabled a letter from the United States Agency for International Development, one of the donors, saying that the Sh535 million aid that was said to have been suspended was "just a proposed programme that we had no idea it even existed."

"There was never any money, this is the first time we are hearing of this," said the PS tabling the letter which quoted press reports on the suspension of the money.

The suspension of the plan was announced by US ambassador Michael Ranneberger.

However, as he said donor's contribution was not all that important, he added: "While we provide Free Primary Education, the conditions through which they (pupils) learn should also be improved (and that's why we need the donors.)"

The statement came at the tail-end of a tense inquest into advance payment of Sh86 million to a supplier for the delivery of 580 computers.

The issues raised by the government audit was that it was irregular to pay the money before the goods were delivered, given that the contract stipulated that money be paid according to the goods delivered.

The PS and his team was grilled for two hours over the money, which was part of a World Bank grant to help in the Free Primary Education.

The PS said the World Bank no longer issued grants for the FPE as the last time this was done was in the 2006/2007 financial year.

The MPs, who had shelved the debate in the morning sitting to probe the Sh86 million computer contracts said paying out money before the delivery of goods was "not an acceptable business practice."

However, the PS said, while the money was paid, there was a bank guarantee to guard against government loss, if the suppliers failed to honour the contract.

The query by the PAC was that the money had been paid by January 31, 2007 while the computers were delivered on February 5, that same year, six days after the expiry of the bank guarantee.

But the matter was put to rest after the education officials said the World Bank had cleared the ministry of any wrong-doing, after the Financial Management Monitoring Report raised no qualms on the contracts.

Each of the 580 computers was bought for Sh92,000. The rest of the funds were for installation of the computers and networking them in all the 76 districts that existed then.

Earlier in the day, the committee had resolved to shelve the day's schedule to discuss the Sh100 million theft in free learning money. But this plan did not materialize after Mr Rugera informed the PAC on the status of the investigations by the Kenya National Audit Office.

Before that though, it had been agreed that the free learning controversy be scheduled for another day for the committee to comprehensively tackle the matter. The temporary chair of the morning session, Mwala MP Daniel Muoki ruled that the Free Primary Education, inasmuch as it was a pressing issue, would not be discussed in the meeting.

However, after the tea break, PAC's vice chairman Julius Kones and Gichugu MP Martha Karua, joined the proceedings and seemed inclined to change the rules.

Dr Kones, the Konoin MP, moved a motion to have the inquiry on the audit queries shelved in favour of an update from the PS on the free learning saga.

This made Mr Muoki uncomfortable: "There are only two items left on the audit report from the controller and Auditor General's report to the PAC," he said, adding that the FPE saga was "a matter for another day."

But Mr Kones persisted saying the issue was important noting that some of the queries raised in the report could have contributed to the scandal.

"We really want to know what the issue at hand is, and the queries raised here could be some elements of the FPE fund," said Mr Kones.

Mr Muoki then said that inasmuch as he didn't want to dictate the way forward, he favoured that the FPE discussion be held another day.

Nonetheless, he said, his hands were tied and he thus had to get the opinion of the rest of the members. He started seeking verbal votes from each of the members, but stopped midway after Bura MP, Dr Abdi Nuh abstained from the vote and North Horr's MP Chachu Ganya concurred with Dr Kones.

Ms Karua also agreed with Dr Kones saying the issues over the free learning had to be discussed.

It is at this point that the meeting was briefly adjourned for a camera session among the MPs.

When the meeting resumed, the MPs agreed to go for lunch and return at 3pm to complete the audit queries and delve into the FPE scandal. But this was not to be after the revelation that the report will be going to Treasury on Friday and later to be presented to the PAC.

Education minister, Prof Sam Ongeri did not attend.