Wajir Governor Abdi Mohamud cites EACC for audit confusion

Hillary Mageka @hillarymageka

Wajir Governor Abdi Mohamud yesterday blamed the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) for his failure to present  financial statements requested by the Auditor General for audit purposes.

Appearing before the Senate Public Accounts and Investments Committee, the governor also attributed the confusion in the county’s books to technical hitches in the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS).

Mohamud told the committee that the arrest and subsequent prosecution of the County Executive Committee (CEC) member for Finance and chief officer affected the preparation of the Wajir County financial statements.

He also accused the anti-graft agency of carting away vital documents that they needed in responding to audit queries raised by Auditor General Edward Ouko.

“Cash books required for the preparation of the financial statement were collected by EACC hence were not available during the period when the financial  statement was supposed to be prepared,” Mohamud told the Moses Kajwang–led committee.

Technical hitches

Mohamud was responding to audit queries for the 2017/18 financial year.

In his report, Ouko had pointed out that Wajir county government had not prepared and submitted financial statements accompanied by supporting ledgers for audit.

Kajwang demanded answers from EACC liaison officer attached to committee on why the investigators had taken away all the documents.

“When EACC raids counties, copies must be left because the counties will not stop operating because of raids,” he said.

The governor also said there were technical hitches with the automated system at the time which made it impossible to upload transactions onto the IFMIS system.

“There were some technical hitches with the system during the period hence the delay in the financial statements,” he said.