The Tourism department has been put on the spot over misuse of public funds.
According to Auditor General, Nancy Gathungu, the department used a whooping KSh 14 million to print wall and table calendars.
Auditor General's report
The audit report shows that out of a KSh 272.8 million budget, KSh 30.5 million was used for procuring specialized material category which included the calendars.
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KSh 14,238,106 was used for designing and printing the calendars in question.
“The financial statements for the year under review reflect use of goods and services balance of KSh 272,705,455, which includes payments of KSh 30,558,945 in respect of specialised materials which in turn includes payments totalling to KSh 14,238,106 for design and printing of calendars,” the report showed.
Also, the report showed that the department had requested the Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) to work on the calendars but a different entity was later contracted for the job.
“The State Department on October 5, 2020, requested the Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) to undertake the design and printing of Government calendars for the year 2021
“Authority to Incur Expenditure amounting KSh 14 million was issued to KTB in November 2020,” the report added.
Single-sourcing the tender
The department was also on the spot for single-sourcing the tender which should have been done using the open tender method.
The quantities of the calendars to be procured were 50,000 units of wall calendars at estimated KSh 16 million and 25,000 units of desk calendars at estimated KSh 7.5 million.
“No justification was provided for the use of a procuring agent instead of open tender method, contrary to Section 51 of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act, 2015,” the report read.
“Procurement documents such as notice of advertisement, evaluation minutes, letter of award and contract agreement between the procuring agent and KTB were not availed for audit review,” the auditor general noted.
Overpaying staff
The department was also faulted for overpaying some staff members' subsistence and per diem for foreign trips.
"No explanation has been provided for the extra five days paid to one officer that occasioned an overpayment of KSh 286,730. Consequently, the effectiveness of internal controls on the management of imprests could not be confirmed," the report said.
