What you dont remember is we have a new constitution not those colonial type constitutions like tanzania's and the rest.Kenya's growth is dependent on institutions not one individual(s) like Uhuruto!Kenyas grows on stronger as we go on with the implementation of our constitution!If you guys are waiting for Magufuli to take you to Canaan on his own,you are up for a rude shock!It has been tried before in Kenya and it has failed,I mean every citizen and state institutions too have a role in the success of a nation,keep looking up to your president alone it will be a long way down from there my friend!
stronger how?
Your Devolution PS just resigned out of graft
Revealed: How Devolution ministry tried to change details in Sh826m payout
Contentious fund committed to civil works projects.
President Uhuru Kenyatta (second left), Cabinet Secretary for Devolution and Planning Anne Waiguru (third left) and NYS Director Nelson Githinji (left) inspect a clean-up exercise in Kibera. Police investigations have revealed that documents used to transfer Sh800 million from the National Youth Service headquarters were forged. FILE PHOTO | PSCU
In Summary
- YS has three IFMIS accounts: consultancies, food and civil works.
- Contentious fund committed to civil works projects.
- Documents show NYS Deputy Director Adan Harakhe called IFMIS Director Jerome Ochieng to open up the accounting system to delete details of some payments.
ANDREW TEYIE and VINCENT ACHUKA
Fresh details have emerged on how the Devolution ministry attempted to arm-twist Treasury officials to alter details of the controversial Sh826 million National Youth Service (NYS) payments in the electronic platform known as the Integrated Financial Management Information Systems (IFMIS).
Documents also show that Treasury Principal Secretary Kamau Thugge had, in a letter dated May 7, raised the red flag on the goings-on at the Devolution ministry by cautioning PS Peter Mangiti against engaging in improper financial procedures.
“We wish to reiterate that it is a violation of the Public Finance Management Act, which states that it is an offence of financial misconduct if, without lawful authority, an officer incurs expenditure or makes a commitment on behalf of the government or entity since this results in pending bills,” Dr Thugge wrote.
According to documents seen by the Sunday Nation, just before the issue spilled over to the public, NYS deputy director Adan Gedow Harakhe tried to work backwards to correct the situation by calling on IFMIS director Jerome Ochieng to open up the accounting system to delete the payments.
“The purpose of this letter is to request that various Local Purchase and Service Orders be reversed and be decommitted from the system. The officer from NYS who will execute this task is Ms Leah Guchuka,” wrote Mr Harakhe in a letter dated May 27.
Mr Harakhe argued that because his password had allegedly been stolen by unknown people, the payments should be deleted from the system in which funds are allocated for specific jobs undertaken by ministries to avoid pending bills. Opening the system would have freed the funds for NYS to use as it wished, contrary to the rules.
An official from the Treasury, who spoke in confidence, said that making changes on IFMIS entries without written authority from Treasury Secretary Henry Rotich acting on written instructions from the PS or Cabinet secretary of the concerned ministry would lead to a full-blown investigation by Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission.
IFMIS was introduced to ensure transparency and accountability in procurement and payment in government.
SOURCE OF TENSION
On Thursday, Devolution CS Anne Waiguru said she had written to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations over attempts to steal Sh826 million from NYS. The appointment of Mr Harakhe to deputise NYS director-general Nelson Githinji has also been seen as a source of tension, something Ms Waiguru has denied.
Before the issue became public, Mr Harakhe had hit the panic button after an NYS officer (name withheld) who initiated the payments process in IFMIS to clear some bills in NYS pronects in Nairobi’s Kibera and Mukuru settlements declined to alter the documents, saying it would be tantamount to interfering with police investigations.
The NYS has three IFMIS accounts: consultancies, food and civil works. The contentious funds had been committed for civil works projects.
Funds in each account must be used for a specific job allocated. NYS had encroached on the civil works account to pay other bills after exhausting funds in food and consultancy accounts.
The Treasury officials are said to have rejected Mr Harakhe’s request and asked for a letter from PS Mangiti, who is yet to commit himself on the issue a month later.
On Saturday, Ms Waiguru took to social media to circulate documents showing that she informed the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) on June 5, more than a month after the incident. This was seen as an attempt to counter criticism on social media.
“I contacted the CID when Adan Harakhe informed me that his password had been stolen and money committed to NYS IFMIS,” Ms Waiguru said via her Twitter account.
In one of the letters, she asked DCI boss Ndegwa Muhoro to call in the Cybercrime Unit.
“This matter is of grave concern to me as the minister in charge. I am, therefore, requesting you to instruct the Cybercrime Unit to undertake urgent and thorough investigations to establish the exact happenings and extent of the activities,” wrote Ms Waiguru.
IN A HURRY
On Thursday, she held a press conference defending various payments, including to Mr Mutahi Ngunyi’s Consulting House, Transcend Media Group, Bora Global Ltd, Ms Things of Desire, and Brand Associates.
Just before the reading of the Budget, the Devolution ministry seemed to be in a hurry to claim Sh5 billion from Treasury.
“The purpose of this letter is to request your office to load this approval on the following budget heads and lines in IFMIS to assist the ministry to settle the already incurred expenses and other commitments before the closure of financial year,” wrote Mr Mangiti in a letter to Dr Thugge.
Some Sh4 billion was approved before the Treasury cautioned the Devolution ministry.
During the same period, Mr Mangiti had also asked the Treasury to release Sh162 million for the Kenya Youth Empowerment Programme, an issue that raised questions since the programme was fully funded by the World Bank to the tune of Sh1.4 billion.
On Saturday, Cord leader Raila Odinga waded into the NYS scandal and called for an independent forensic audit of how the funds have been used.
“Jubilee must get to the bottom of the theft going on at the Ministry of Devolution with a thorough independent forensic audit of the NYS, including its budget, recruitment, training manual and gender, ethnic and regional composition of its recruits,” said Mr Odinga in a statement.
The
Sunday Nation also established that for the past three months, youths working for the NYS project in Kibera have not been receiving regular payments.
The more than 3,000 youth who are working for the project are supposed to earn Sh470 per day with Sh140 going to their saccos. Their pay is supposed to be consolidated for six days and paid on Saturday through National Bank of Kenya to their mobile money accounts.
A
Sunday Nation enquiry to the Ministry of Devolution about allegations of irregular payments and withdrawal of officers had not received a response almost one month after being made.
This comes as part of the project remains unfinished due to lack of materials despite a six-month extension heading to a close.
The government in April silently withdrew its 675 NYS officers who were supposed to supervise the youth from the slum who work for the project.
This seems to have affected work. For example, a 3.6km tarmac road that was to be constructed between the Kibera DC’s office and Highrise Estate is yet to be completed nine months after its construction began due to lack of materials.
In addition, none of the posho mills that were to be constructed are working. President Uhuru Kenyatta, while on a tour of the slum in December last year, said the posho mills, which were to be owned by each of the 16 saccos, would sell maize flour at a subsidised price of Sh60 per 2kg.
A wi-fi project that was to provide free internet access to the residents has never been implemented. Only one of the eight police posts promised by the government is operational. Similar projects have been launched in Nairobi’s Mathare and Kisumu.
Revealed: How Devolution ministry tried to change details in
Why Corruption Is Devolution's Biggest Enemy
By JOSEPH KAZUNGU KATANA
Dec. 12, 2015, 12:00 am
1 Comment
Integrity Centre, headquarters of the Ethics And Anti-Corruption Commission. Photo/FILE
In 2010 Kenya promulgated a new constitution which embraced devolution as the basic form of governance system. Forty-seven devolved units were established to be managed by elected officials that included governors, deputy governors and members of county assemblies. As governments, the counties established county public service employment boards and numerous other service delivery organs.
When the new governance system came into effect after the 2013 general election, Kenyans were filled with hope, expectation and optimism.
Communities from marginalised areas such as the Coast region, saw in devolution a fair share of national resource distribution, equal employment opportunity in public jobs, better health care, education and infrastructure —opportunities which they had been denied under centralised, one-party system of government.
In the three years devolution has been in existence, 14 functions have been devolved to the 47 county governments. They include agriculture, health, roads and transport, pre-primary education, trade, tourism, drug control, and community participation in governance processes.
What is devolution’s three-year scorecard? What have been the challenges?
Despite failure by many of the counties to uphold the spirit of devolution, Kenyans massively support it. An opinion poll by IPSOS released in April 2015 found that 78 per cent of Kenyans supported devolution, a growth of nearly 10 percent from a similar poll in 2014.
This overwhelming support for devolution notwithstanding, the poll found that Kenyans were dissatisfied with the performance of governors and Members of County Assemblies.
Another survey by Infotrak indicated that overall, counties that implemented highly visible projects scored highly, while counties where governors and MCAs were involved in political wrangles, and where MCAs have been threatening to impeach governors, performed poorly.
Devolution’s three-year-scorecard is incomplete. It is a mix of successes and observable failures, especially on the part of governors. Some counties have made modest progress in sectors such as early childhood education, health, agriculture, roads and bursaries, but others – perhaps the majority of them – are still liming toward devolution.
The big picture in these three years is that devolution has failed to fulfill people’s expectations. There are several factors to explain Kenyans’ mounting dissatisfactions with devolution, even though they overwhelmingly support it.
The governors, on their part, have attributed devolution’s slow pace to insufficient funding by the national government. They have also complained about the slow pace at which these funds flow from the national government to the counties. Overall, the governors’ perspective has been that the national government is frustrating devolution.
For the greater majority of Kenyans, however, the biggest concern about devolution’s slow pace is corruption. A recent opinion poll by Transparency International-Kenya (TI-K) found that 59 per cent of Kenyans perceive corruption to be the biggest threat to devolution, followed by 11 per cent who felt that political wrangles were a threat to devolution, and seven per cent who felt poor funding to counties was a threat to devolution.
The same poll found that while majority of the respondents were dissatisfied with their county governments and were to a large extent unimpressed by service delivery with regard to the 14 devolved functions, they did not attribute this to lack of funds, but rather to corruption and mismanagement of available funds which was seen to be the biggest threat.
This means contrary to what Cord and the Council of Governors are saying about more funds to the counties, the Kenyan public is more interested in how the funds are being managed than how much is allocated to the counties.
Mismanagement of public funds in the counties has also been periodically mentioned in reports by financial oversight organs like the auditor-general, the Controller of Budget and the Commission on Revenue Commission.
According to reports from these organs, improper procurement procedures have contributed to corruption. The ‘get-rich-now’ attitude prevalent among some officials in the counties has also contributed to misuse of public funds through unnecessary domestic and foreign trips and inflated numbers of MCA sittings to get additional allowances.
If devolution was meant to empower local communities through employment opportunities, access to county tenders and participation in local governance issues, then it has failed to tangibly achieve these noble objectives in these three years.
In addition to corruption, county governments have been embedded to the culture of tribalism, clanism, nepotism and cronyism. It has been about who knows you and how to access county employment and tendering opportunities.
In September 2015, the International Budget Partnership indicated a majority of county bosses are reluctant to involve the public in the process of determining county budgeting priorities, often resulting in ineffective planning for devolved funds.
IBP reported that despite having established county budget and economic forums, governors and their deputies have not been keen to make effective use of these forums.
It further accused county governments of lacking interest in involving locals in the process, and that county budget forums have ended up becoming a rubber stamp, only reflecting what the county governments want.
Devolution’s rising expectations are slowing down. Kenyans are now thinking about changing the constitution, in part, to give devolution a better chance of success.
An IPSOS poll has suggested Kenyans feel that the most pressing constitutional changes should be the reduction of elected leaders and limitations on salaries and benefits for senior government officials.
It is about controlling corruption. Kenyans are increasingly speaking against corruption, both at the national and county levels. This is why the travel visa restrictions to be imposed on individuals linked to corruption should apply to national and county officials, as well. Kenyans still overwhelmingly support devolution, the biggest enemy to devolution’s success is corruption.
Why Corruption Is Devolution's Biggest Enemy