The Nairobi Alcoholic Drinks Control and Licensing Board is on the spot over failure to explain how it spent over Sh427 million in the 2019-2020 financial year.

According to Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu’s report that was released in October 2022, the liquor board only submitted vouchers of up to Sh275,113,746 collected during the year, for audit. This represents 91 per cent of the total expenditure.

Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the board members were tasked to explain how they spent Sh152 million — the balance in the county revenue fund.

During the committee proceedings, it emerged that receipts of the expenditure were deposited into a Co-operative Bank account but the evidence of such remittance was not presented to the County Revenue Fund (CRF).

Also, the figure of revenue collected was not supported by a schedule of liquor licence applicants, database lists of all liquor outlets within the county and liquor board deliberations.

The committee also heard that lists of the licences and their security numbers were not provided for audit verification.

When tasked to explain by PAC chairperson Chege Mwaura (Ngara MCA), former acting director of the Liquor Board, Hesbon Agwena (pictured), alluded to failure to submit the full report.  The Auditor General had also questioned hefty allocations for unproved allowances, supply of goods and services, flight facilitation and consultancy services.