Kang'ata to digitise Murang'a data systems to kick out cartels 

Murang'a Governor Irungu Kang'ata has announced that all departments that deal with the payroll, supplies, licences, fleets and building plans approvals will be digitised.

He said this will reduce physical interactions that have bred corrupt cartels since 2013.

"We want to shift to a digital way of transacting our business. There will be no need for our customers to visit our offices carrying liquid cash. From the safety of their residences, they will reach us, pay for the service sought and get notifications on their phones," Dr Kang'ata said.

He said the county raised just a fraction of its local revenue potential because of haemorrhage of money in manual systems.

"The controller of budget has been told that we can raise Sh1 billion as local revenue. Yet we only manage to meet half the target. From where I sit, our potential is even higher than the cited figures," he said on Monday.

He said digitisation will streamline recurrent expenditure that stands at 45 percent of total revenues – 10 percentage points more than the legal benchmark of 35 percent.

"A digitised payroll means we cannot manipulate numbers to be paid and figures payable. It will be hard to introduce ghost workers," he said.

Statutory deductions from payslips will be remitted to all relevant authorities without fail, he added.

The Mwangi wa Iria administration was accused in court of deducting money from the salaries of workers, including loan payments, in a checkoff system of credit but retaining it, which exposed the affected people to auctions and credit bureau blacklisting.

Dr Kang’ata added that all categories of licences will be available online and it will be hard for staff to manipulate and alter them.

Digitised pool

"For example, we have bar licences that need streamlining. We have complaints that some licences being offered do not conform with the mother law. A digitised pool of all licences will kick out those irregularities," he said.

He added that all medical supplies, stocking and dispensing will be digitised to curb diversions by cartels into the private markets.

He said that all county medical supplies will come fitted with an e-code that will be verifiable using a phone's short message.

"All our medicines will henceforth be procured exclusively from the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa) and it will be possible to track them from reception to dispensation. The cartels that have been stealing our medicines should get something else to do," he said.

Dr Kang'ata spoke when the supply contract between Kemsa and his administration was signed. The agency stopped supplying medicines to the county five years ago after Mr Wa Iria failed to pay a Sh31 million bill.

Three suspects who worked as pharmaceutical technologists at Maragua Level Four Hospital were arrested recently in connection with the theft of medicines worth Sh3 million from the stores.

They were charged in June and granted a pretrial bond of Sh50,000 each. Their cases are underway at the Kigumo courthouse.

The thefts allegedly took place on November 27, when the store was broken into and drugs worth Sh2.5 million were stolen, and in the mid-morning hours of December 13, when drugs worth Sh500,000 and packed in three cartons were stolen with no door being broken.

Detectives told Nation.Africa that such thefts are normal and are facilitated by senior county government officials colluding with hospital management boards and staff.

Stock cards

Dr Kang'ata said preliminary findings indicated that more than 60 percent of medicines that the county government procures for the hospitals it runs are likely stolen and stock cards corrupted.

Some clinical officers are said to steal medicines and stock them for sale in their own pharmacies, laboratories and clinics.

The governor added that he was aware that some staff also steal equipment, beddings and laundry effects meant for patients.

"We want all involved in those varieties of vices to stand warned that the most promising fates in those cartels are sacking and jail," he said.

He added that all county vehicles will be registered on an e-portal and each, its driver and the kind of assignment will be revealed at the touch of a button.

"The era of our drivers using our county vehicles to run personal errands will be dealt a fatal blow. All our resources must go to service delivery to serve our people," he said.

He added that parking fees, rates and other remittances, especially those from the building sector, will be transacted online.

"We will also ensure that all of our public utility lands are banked, titling processes digitised and succession processes monitored to eliminate fraud," he said.

The digitisation will be fast-tracked to cover 100 percent of departments, he said.

[email protected]