Counties are on the Auditor-General’s radar following a growing trend to pay salaries outside formal payrolls, risking the loss of billions of shillings.
The Office of the Auditor-General says it has audited wage payments made outside the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Database (IPPD) by counties in the year to June 2022.
The findings will form part of the respective counties’ audit reports, said the auditor.
The office said it “audited payrolls processed outside the IPPD in all the 47 county executives. The findings were incorporated in the financial audit reports for the counties”.
The Auditor-General also said the office analysed the Integrated Financial Management Information System for the counties and 75 ministries, departments and agencies.
This could unravel dirty details behind some counties reporting huge amounts as salary payments processed outside the IPPD, an issue Controller of Budget (CoB) Margaret Nyakang’o has previously raised concerns about.
“The office of the CoB noted that wages amounting to Sh15.63 billion were processed through manual systems and vouchers. County governments cited a lack of personal numbers for failing to process all salaries in the IPPD system. This is contrary to government policy, which requires wages to be processed through the IPPD system,” said Ms Nyakang’o.
She said the manual payroll “is prone to abuse and may lead to the loss of public funds due to lack of proper controls.”
According to the CoB report, counties notorious for processing wage payments through the manual systems were Bomet (Sh1.2 billion), Nakuru (Sh1.06 billion), Garissa (Sh1.03 billion), Vihiga (Sh934.9 million), Siaya (Sh792.5 million), Kiambu (Sh776.1 million), Homa Bay (Sh694.3 million), Laikipia (Sh646.7 million), Kisumu (Sh515.3 million) and Murang’a (Sh504.1 million).
“The Controller of Budget advises counties to fast-track the acquisition of staff personal numbers to ensure the entire wage bill is processed through the prescribed personnel system.
“County governments are required to migrate to the Unified Human Resource Information System by October,” said the report.
The auditor submitted a total of 1,617 audit reports during the year to June 2022, comprising 1,578 financial audit reports and 39 specialised audit reports.
