EPRA poked over suspect expenditures
By Mercy.Mwai, March 1, 2023
Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu has yet again fingered the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA) for several irregular expenditures.
In a report tabled in the National Assembly last week, Gathungu said Kenyans may have got less value for money in various commitments made by the authority in the year ending June 30, 2021.
Among the issues Gathungu (pictured) raised includes inaccuracies in both employee costs, property, plant and equipment, unsupported expenditures on consultancy, irregular expenditures touching on domestic kerosene and liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) storage and cylinder contract, failure to remit funds to Kenya Revenue Authority, irregular appointments of Director General among others.
Conflict of interest
The irregularities include failure of the board members to declare conflict of interest when they interdicted the former DG and appointed one of their own who sat in the meeting that expelled him as well the board appointing the acting DG before getting the ministry’s approval.
“In view of the foregoing, the regularity and suitability in the appointment of the Director General could not be confirmed and management was in breach of the law,” she said,
With regards to domestic kerosene and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) storage and cylinder contracts, Gathungu said the authority was in breach of the law with respect to how it conducted the entire tender.
On LPG storage and cylinder contract, Gathungu regretted that the authority was in breach of the law as it paid a total of Sh85.5 million since inception of the contract, thus leading to an explained overpayment of Sh13.9 million.
According to her an amount of Sh45.5 million was incurred on inspection of LPG gas storage facilities and LPG cylinders but tender documents show that the contract was awarded to a company on March 28, 2019 at a total cost of Sh35.8million.
On the hiring of a consultancy for development of Environmental Health Safety (EHS) guidelines for petroleum upstream sector, Gathungu reiterated that despite the management awarding the tender at a cost of Sh17 million, they did not provide documents to support payments of Sh10.2 million.