About 19 counties do not have land ownership documents for parcels they inherited from the defunct local authorities, a new report shows.

Additionally, the counties lack logbooks for tractors, tippers, rollers and motorcycles in their possession.

The affected counties include Elgeyo Marakwet, Nakuru, Kakamega, Lamu, Kisii, Taita Taveta, Garrissa , Isiolo, Bomet, Embu, Kirinyaga , Nairobi, Kwale, Nyeri, Busia, Migori and Kiambu.

The report reads: “Review of County Executives’ records revealed that  19 County Executives did not have ownership documents.”

The report from the Auditor General Nancy Gathungu further shows that 21 counties did not update their fixed assets registers.

Asset registers

Some asset registers, the report says, had not been updated to include assets inherited from the defunct local authorities while others had not updated the additional assets acquired during the year.

The report further flags Turkana, Homa Bay, Kitui, and Kiambu for failing to disclose certain assets and inventory balances in their financial statements despite owning them.

The undisclosed assets include land and buildings, furniture, motor vehicles and ICT equipment.

This omission is contrary to the provisions of IPSAS 17, which require the recognition of property, plant, and equipment to ensure that users of financial statements can accurately assess an entity’s investment in such assets and track changes over time.

 Reads the report: “However, this is an improvement from the previous financial year, where eight (8) County Executives had similar non-disclosure issues, indicating some progress in compliance with financial reporting standards.”

Serious issues

For Nakuru, the report shows the county government did not have ownership documents or title deeds for 966 parcels of land while the asset register did not contain records of logbook details for 445 motor vehicles.  The county is also facing serious land issues as a parcel of land measuring 4.17 acres at Mbombo in Elementainta ward and another one in Elburgon Township did not have a search and consent from Lands Control Board.

In Lamu, 20 parcels of land do not have ownership documents while in Taita-Taveta 665 parcels of land distributed across the departments do not have ownership documents.

 In Nairobi, the county does not have ownership documents for the Dandora dumpsite.

 In Kiambu, 2,762 parcels of land do not have ownership documents, 29 titles deeds provided were not the name of the County, four title deeds were in the name of individuals while 25 title deeds were under defunct local luthorities.

 Kakamega lacks ownership documents and lease agreement for County Aggregation and Industrial Park in Likuyani Sub-County.