Graft unearthed at Embu Level Five Hospital shocks – Weekly Citizen

The county assembly of Embu has suspended all the payments to non pharmaceutical supplies and food commodities at the region’s Level Five hospital after discovery that it was ridden with extreme cases of graft.
According to deputy speaker of the county assembly Steve Simba, MCAs discovered a scheme where massive inflation of purchase prices of basic items during the tendering process was factored in.
MCAs want investigations into tender awards that favour certain firms at the behest of the hospital’s head of procurement department.
Runyenjes Central MCA wants Governor Martin Wambora to crack the whip on an officer suspected to be corrupt and replace him immediately. Weekly Citizen has documents showing, the hospital purchased one kilogramme of maize flour at Sh340 when the market price of Sh75. Document folders used for record keeping were tendered at Sh275 when the retail price in local bookshop is Sh30.
MCAs want county treasury boss John Njagi impeached if he fails to submit a list of the county’s verified pending bills as gazetted by the Office of the Auditor General. It has emerged; the assembly’s liaison committee has failed to obtain the list.

Governor Wambora

Embu county has secretly been paying a number of pending bills which were not verified by the assembly, resulting in some questionable expenditure. A number of the firms paid directors are parting with kickbacks to be considered for payment. The finance department is to submit a list of all pending bills to suppliers, which were not factored in the supplementary budget passed recently for scrutiny before payments.
The assembly has decided to form an ad-hoc committee to probe use of public funds on payment of staff salaries after allocating over Sh2.8billion to personnel emoluments in a supplementary budget.
Of great concern is the Sh1.5 billion salaries and allowances for the health department, staffing levels for all the public health facilities, the entire procurement process for the goods and services for the health docket at Embu Level Five Hospital and other relevant matters.
The county public service board, department of public service, administration and devolution will conduct a physical headcount for the entire staff of the county government with an aim of establishing the actual staff establishment, staff needs and staffing gaps within the next sixty days and submit a report to the assembly.
Another ad-hoc committee is to probe personnel emoluments for the entire county government which swallows Sh1.3 billion in annual budget, excluding the health department, with an aim of establishing the actual staffing, staffing needs and the quality of service delivery to citizens.
Report by county assembly liaison committee on the first supplementary budget for the 2019/2020 financial year reveals that expenditure for the personnel emoluments had continued to increase despite the fact that a number of employees have exited through natural attrition.
Reports from departments reveal that approximately Sh114 million being annual payroll reductions as a result of employees who had exited through natural attrition was reallocated from the personnel emolument to finance other components of the county budget.