MPs question IHRM over unsupported expenditure, irregular procurement and college ownership dispute
By Ndiritu Wanjiru, July 1, 2026The Kenya Institute of Human Resource Management (IHRM) has come under a lot of fire from Members of Parliament for years of unaudited financial statements, dubious multi-million shilling investments and a long-standing ownership dispute with its training college.
Appearing before the Public Investments Committee on Social Services and Administration (PIC-SSA), chaired by Emmanuel Wangwe (Navakholo), on Wednesday, July 1, 2026, IHRM officials were questioned over audit queries contained in the Auditor-General’s reports covering the institute’s financial statements.
“Lawmakers have questioned the management of the Kenya Institute of Human Resource Management (IHRM) over years of unsupported financial records, unsupported multi-million-shilling investments and a bitter ownership dispute over its training college,” the Parliament statement read in part.
The audit uncovered the following areas of financial management that required improvement between 2016 and 2021: The financial statements for this period were prepared with incomplete documentation and without reconciling accounts, and IHRM stated that financial statements were prepared with unreconciled accounts.
During the period under review, the institute did not have a formal accounting system, as the staff had to compile financial statements manually in box files and bank statements, said Head of Finance Job Ouma in answers to the committee.
The committee had concerns about poor record-keeping, which meant that there was a significant difference. For example, in the 2016/2017 financial year, the committee received a report of a variance in membership revenue in excess of Ksh.39 million, which is unexplained. Further, there was also no reconciliation document for Ksh51.4 million of bank balances and cash at the audit.
Lawmakers also sat down to interrogate an investment of Ksh11.2 million in a subsidiary that was never even registered by IHRM management, which later tried to take it off its books.
IHRM’s defense
The head of finance explained the problem, but the Committee Chairperson, Emmanuel Wangwe, strongly criticised the explanation, saying that the institute’s council had decided to fix the accounting mistake in the future without providing documents showing how the money was used.
The actions of clearing financial balances without supporting evidence are unethical and irregular, and you need to be reprimanded as a Certified Public Accountant,” Wangwe said.
The committee also looked at the current CHRM ownership status, a creation of IHRM in 1997 as a training arm of IHRM. The college has since declared itself independent, while IHRM has no effective control or access to the revenues generated by the college, which was created by IHRM.
While the institute is still on the paper list of partners, IHRM management acknowledged that it was excluded from the meetings of CHRM. The officials informed MPs that they have taken legal advice from the Attorney General to try to get the institution back.
Wangwe questioned IHRM’s loss of control of an organisation that it founded, expressing disbelief.
“How can you have a son or a daughter after all those years whom you did not know whether dead or alive?” Wangwe asked.
The Auditor-General also noted unsupported investment in Treasury bills worth Ksh122.5 million and irregular procurement policies which called for payment of up to 70 per cent of the value of contracts to suppliers, exceeding the legal cut-off of 20 per cent.
The committee members called for accountability on a personal level for the financial misconduct.
Jackson Kosgei asked the committee why the documents which were currently appearing before the committee had not been made available to the auditor-general during the audit process.
“Why was it not available at that time? What accounts for the absence of those documents?” Kosgei posed.
IHRM management, led by Executive Director Ms Quresh Abdullahi, reported that they were tackling historical governance and financial issues from the previous administrations.
The committee instructed the institute to provide an extensive record of insurance policies and procurement processes and the status of the reconstructed accounts by July 22, 2026.