Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu has questioned the expenditure of Sh757.6 million by the Department of Youth on operating expenses, routine maintenance of vehicles and other transport equipment, fuel, oil and lubricants.

In her report tabled in the National Assembly on Tuesday, Gathungu said there were anomalies in the expenditure.

On procurement of motor vehicle service and repairs, Gathungu said that although the department paid Sh3.2 million to three garages for repair of vehicles, records provided for audit indicated that the garages were not registered and prequalified by the State Department.

This, according to her, was contrary to section 71 of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act of 2015 which requires the head of procurement function to maintain and continuously update lists of registered suppliers, contractors and consultants in various specific categories of goods, works or services according to its procurement needs.

Gathungu further noted that regulation 174(1) and (2) of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Regulations stipulated that a procurement entity shall utilise its own workshop or garage to repair and maintain motor vehicles, plants or equipment and where the procuring entity lacks the capacity to carry out the repairs or maintenance an accounting officer shall competitively procure such services form a pre-qualified list of service providers.

“Consequently, it was not possible to confirm whether the State department obtained value for money for the expenditure on the repair of motor vehicles,” she added.

The department is also on the spot for failure to provide motor vehicle work tickets despite spending Sh10.4 million on fuel and lubricants on a fleet of 40 motor vehicles.

The Auditor noted that work tickets for 19 motor vehicles were not provided for audit verification which is contrary to regulation 166(4)(b) of the public procurement and Asset Disposal 2020 which stipulates that an accounting officer should ensure that movement and condition of assets can be tracked.

“No explanation was provided for the anomaly,” she added.