Imprests ‘new strategy’ of milking public coffers dry

Imprests have now been turned into avenues of shameless plunder of public resources by unscrupulous Government officials through fictitious requisitions.

Drafters of the Public Finance and Management Act, 2012 drafted imprests as a remedy for procurement bottlenecks to payments of unplanned mini expenditures of up to Sh2 million by State officials.

However, the abuse of imprests has seen the taxpayer lose billions in an intricate network involving senior officers in both national and county governments.

For over a year now, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission and Assets Recovery Authority have put senior officials on their radar, as the agencies move to crack an avenue through which the government has been losing billions of shillings each year.

Presently, the anti-graft commission has recommended prosecution of Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru over Sh10 million in imprests for non-existent travels while it has frozen accounts of several senior officials over illegal imprests.

Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu has indicted at least five junior officers in Kiambu over Sh235 million theft in 2018 and 2019, while nearly all counties are facing audit queries over imprests.

On Friday last week, the court froze accounts of Geoffrey Kimonge, former political advisor to former Taita Taveta Governor John Mruttu, over accusations that in 2015 and 2017, he fraudulently received Sh13,977,987 inform of imprest purportedly for allowances of Members of County Assembly (MCAs) and other staff.

From November 20, 2015, to May 2017, Kimonge fraudulently applied for and received imprest 15 times, of between Sh176,400 and Sh7,233,381, purportedly for allowances for MCAs that he never paid, disguised as for governor’s activities but never surrendered the same as well as other official engagements.

The same week, a 30-year-old Finance officer at the Treasury, Tracy King’e, had her accounts frozen over alleged fraud where she was accused of siphoning Sh37 million through factitious imprests, and using part of it to purchase Treasury Bills.

Massive irregularities

Between February 2020 and March 2022, EACC claims King’e received Sh24 million as imprests in her Cooperative Bank account and in a span of five months between February and June 2022, she received Sh11.899 million through her I&M Bank account that was opened on February 18. Further, the Auditor’s reports, including the recent one for the 2019/20 Financial Year, have exposed massive irregularities in the manner in which imprests is handled by regional governments.

For instance, in the 2019/20 audits, Turkana county was flagged over an outstanding imprests of Sh266,098,254 while in Samburu, besides the Sh71,134,261 that was outstanding as at June 30, 2020, records on the imprests indicated that only Sh229,244,724 of the Sh332,968,572 total imprests issued had been accounted for.

In Kisumu (Sh114 million) Bungoma (Sh67 million), Kiambu (Sh72,496,556), Kiambu (Sh72 million), Mombasa (Sh52 million) and Kajiado (Sh43 million) could not be accounted for.

Besides the audit reports, EACC boss Twalib Mbarak says anti-graft agency has been investigating several cases where cash advances in counties have become avenues for theft, saying “people have been collecting imprests as if it is pocket money”.

“Imprest is one of the most abused public resources, especially in national and county governments,” Twalib said.

Huge deposits

In yet another scam filed in court by EACC last month, Samuel Njoroge, who, since January 2018, has been working as a Finance Officer II in Job Group K at the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, was found to have been receiving huge deposits in his Equity Bank account.

Detectives discovered that Njoroge had received Sh79.76 million, part of which was described as “purchase of snacks”.

On March 8, he received Sh485,000 for purchase of snacks yet there were no withdrawals from this account.

On December 22, 2020, he received another Sh465,000 allegedly for the same purpose but he only withdrew Sh143,000 from his account. Again on September 9, 2020, Njoroge had Sh437,000 imprests deposited into his account for the purpose of purchasing snacks but only withdrew Sh57,350.

“The maximum amount of imprests for the high value procurement is Sh500,000 for local activities and if the governor is going to a foreign trip, one can apply for Sh1 million but once the trip is done, he should surrender,” a senior county officer told People Daily.

“Ordinarily, an officer will collect Sh500,000 several times, but the amount needed for a particular event is only Sh100,000 or even less or the event had been financed through other means, or it never existed,” a source privy to the scheme told People Daily.  Former Auditor General Edward Ouko says theft of public funds through imprests is rampant.

“People are paying themselves through imprests, and it is not in form of salaries but they have found a way of making more money above their normal salaries,” Ouko said. The Kiambu scam, which has been pending before the Senate, was exposed by Gathungu after the county was unable to explain why Charles Mburu, an assistant accountant pocketed Sh60 million in imprests, Joyce Nyambura, a junior clerical officer (Sh58 million), John Mwangi, (Sh47 million), Samuel Mbithu who is an accounts assistant got Sh40 million while Edward Gachomba, a chief clerical officer received Sh28 million.

Expenditure records

“Examination of expenditure records indicated that imprest payments totalling SH235,503,125 issued to five officers, and which were outstanding at the closure of the Financial Year on 30 June, 2019, were not recorded in the imprests register,” the report. Currently, the Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji’s desk, is in possession of a report by EACC recommending prosecution of Waiguru over claims that she and other county officials received Sh10 million in imprests for non-existent travels.

 Waiguru is reported to have traveled to the US, United Kingdom, France, Morocco, India, Germany and Abu Dhabi, but after its investigations, EACC claims to have established that some of the trips never took place yet the governor and county officials pocketed approximately Sh20.9 million in allowances.

EACC says there were no letters of invitation, purpose of the trips was unknown, no approved work plans, and no itinerary and not all trips had letters of appointment/nominations or authority to travel outside the country.

EACC also says the imprests were neither surrendered nor supported by payment vouchers and boarding purposes and that there were no back to office reports.

Waiguru has denied any wrongdoing, saying she was being punished for her decision to move to Deputy President William Ruto’s United Democratic Alliance.

Section 152 of the Public Finance Management Act of 2012 states that accounting officials in counties may authorise payment of cash advances for payments of urgent goods or in the course of their duties.

But the official should account for use of the advance within a reasonable time, and should return balance of the cash advance together with signed supporting documents for the expended cash and where the amounts has not been accounted for or not returned, it becomes a debt owed by the officer and should be deducted from their respective salaries.