Siaya — Siaya County Government has over the last three years been operating on a Sh1 billion deficit, a taskforce led by former Auditor General, Edward Ouko has revealed.
The taskforce, charged with the task of reviewing financial operations among other things, at the same time accused the Siaya County Assembly of exceeding its mandate by changing the executive's budget proposals beyond the one percent limit allowed by the public finance management act of 2015.
Speaking during the release of the final task force findings at the county headquarters, Ouko lamented that the assembly has been overhauling the budget proposals without reference to the executive.
"It appears that the assembly has usurped the executive's role in the budget making process. This can be considered a material breach of the principle of separation of powers and compromises the oversight function of the assembly," said the former Auditor General.
On the budget deficit, the taskforce said that since 2019/2020 financial year, the county government has operated a financial deficit budget of Sh1,125,000,000 annually.
The report said attempts by the devolved government to plug the deficit through reduction or elimination of allocations to some projects have always led to creation of pending bills thus exacerbating the cycle of financial deficit.
The taskforce said the county had pending bills amounting to Sh. 1,036,606,598.36 out of which Sh 463,161,010.13 bills were from the development expenditure while Sh573,445,588.23 for recurrent expenditure.
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It however flagged out a total of Sh20,831,038 of the pending bills as ineligible and ought not to be paid.
A further Sh118,714,369 of the pending bills were also flagged as ineligible for payment as there were no support documentation.
Siaya Governor, James Orengo said his government will implement the recommendations of the taskforce which called for, among other things, more autonomy for the county public service board.
Orengo said that the task force faced several challenges, among them court cases that challenged its validity but all were dismissed.
Alego / Usonga Member of Parliament, Samuel Atandi hailed the report, saying that it has boldly pointed out the cause of poor development in the county.
He said that as leaders, they will follow up with the relevant bodies to ensure that all the recommendations were implemented.
The executive director of the community initiative action group, Chris Owala who also hailed the report, took issue with the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations for contributing to impunity in the county through inconclusive investigations.
"You cannot investigate cases forever. There must be time limit," said Owala who said that the investigative bodies' lethargic investigations have been giving suspects opportunity to interfere with cases.
Owala at the same time called on the government to evoke relevant laws and recover the assets acquired through corruption.
