Sh1.6bn Covid-19 vaccine doses cannot be traced
The national and county governments cannot account for about three million Covid-19 vaccine doses worth at least Sh1.6 billion, a damning special audit report has revealed.
According to the Auditor-General, the Ministry of Health could not account for over 1.5 million vaccine doses valued at Sh920 million while county governments could also not explain where more than 1.2 million doses worth Sh774 million went.
The audit showed that of the 27.8 million doses the country purchased and received from donors last year at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, more than 2.7 million doses cannot be accounted for.
Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu, said that while the country received 27,818,320 vaccine doses, there was an unexplained and unreconciled deficit of 1,566,973 doses at the national level.
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Examination of the records in the Chanjo system revealed that as at March 31, some 19,597,477 doses were dispatched to the counties and 6,713,349 doses were still in stock at the time of the audit.
The counties had an unexplained or unreconciled deficit variance of 1,223,242 vaccine doses, according to the audit, between March 2021 and March 2022. The counties received 19, 603, 441 doses and administered 16,933,213. Some 749, 362 doses were in stock and 697, 624 were expired.
“In aggregate, the national and county level had an unexplained deficit totalling to 2,790,215 doses valued at Sh1,695,665,895 as at March 31, 2022,” reads the consolidated special audit report on the Covid-19 vaccine rollout as at March 31.
The report alongside the 47 county-specific audits were tabled in the Senate yesterday.
According to the report, the Ministry of Health had an approved budget of Sh9.17 billion for Covid-19 vaccination for the financial year ended June 30, 2022. The amount included World Bank funding of Sh8 billion and Sh1.1 billion from the Kenya Private Sector Alliance, but exclusive of Sh465 million secured from the Global Alliance for Vaccine Immunization.
The 27.8 million vaccine doses Kenya received between March 2021 and March 31, 2022 were from various partners, donors and the government’s own procurement. They included Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Sinopharm brands, which were distributed to nine regional vaccine stores in Nairobi, Nyeri, Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru, Kakamega, Eldoret, Garissa and Meru.
Although the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccination was found to be effective in the counties, unexplained variances in the number of the doses was a constant audit query across the devolved units.
Nairobi had the biggest variance of 437,039 doses worth Sh267 million, Siaya County had unexplained variance of 31,387 doses valued at Sh18.3 million while Nyandarua County had a deficit of 48,300 doses valued at Sh29.8 million.
Vihiga had a variance of 16,849 worth Sh8.2 million, Kisumu had a variance of 17,262 worth Sh23.9 million, and Kiambu 11,765 doses worth Sh7.2 million.
Nyamira County had a variance of 53,172 doses valued at Sh29 million, Kericho 53,818 doses (Sh31.4 million), while Narok had a variance of 26,052 doses worth Sh12.9 million.
Kakamega had a deficit of 59,235 worth Sh32 million, Nakuru 59,600 doses valued at Sh36.8 million, while Kajiado had a variance of 70,255 doses worth Sh38 million.
Further, Kisii had a variance of 26,488 doses worth Sh18.9 million, Homa Bay 70,935 valued at Sh40.5 million, Migori 37,694 doses worth Sh25 million and Busia 54,124 doses valued at Sh33 million.
For Makueni, the deficit was 42,975 worth Sh28.4 million, Bungoma 14,939 doses worth Sh9.6 million, and Bomet 104,582 doses valued at Sh60.5 million.
Machakos County had a deficit of 15,971 doses worth Sh16.8 million, Kitui 47,568 doses valued at Sh29 million and Baringo 23,035 worth Sh16 million.
The audit report stated that the variance could have been caused by unreported wastage at the facilities, doses used during outreaches or in facilities not defined or updated in the Chanjo system or vaccine data not entered accurately.
“At the time of the special audit, no action had been taken to correct the erroneous transactions totalling to 3,873,187 doses in the system,” the report stated.
For the 5,964 doses of Sputnik-V meant for Nairobi and Kiambu counties, Nairobi administered 3,859 doses while Kiambu only 39 doses even though stock take exercise revealed nil balances for the vaccine for both counties.
“There was no documentary evidence on how the balances of 1,146 and 920 for Nairobi and Kiambu counties respectively, were accounted for. Further, the special audit could not establish whether the vaccine was procured by the government or were donations by development partners as they were not processed through the Chanjo system,” the audit stated.
At the same time, the Ministry had set aside Sh169 million for training and capacity building. However, payment vouchers indicated that only Sh36 million was paid in respect to training expenses. The ministry trained 2,503 health workers at a cost of Sh30 million. However, supporting documents, including imprest surrenders for Siaya, Machakos, Laikipia and Samburu counties amounting to Sh3.3 million, were not provided to the audit team for review.
“Additionally, except for Trans Nzoia and Lamu counties, training reports relating to each training in the rest of the 45 counties were not provided for audit. Consequently, the audit teams could not ascertain whether healthcare workers in the aforementioned counties were trained,” reads the report.
There was also the issue of overpayment of daily subsistence allowance amounting to Sh4.2 million for the training of the workers after the ministry paid a flat rate of Sh6,300 instead of Sh4,900 for 44 county workers outside Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa.
