Kenya: Fears of Graft As Kenya Govt Unable to Account for U.S.$3.6 Billion in Spending - Report

 

Kenya Revenue Authority Offices at the Times Tower Building is responsible for collecting income, customs, and excise tax.

 A third of the Kenya government's expenditures for the last financial year - some $3.6 billion - cannot be accounted for, local media reported, pointing to loopholes for the theft of public funds.

In the 2011/12 financial year report tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, auditor general Edward Ouko said accounting officers did not properly explain how 33 percent of the government's 920 billion Kenya shilling ($10.8 billion) expenditure was used.

"I was not able to establish whether expenditures reflected in these statements were incurred lawfully," he said in a report from Business Daily.

"We were very frustrated by their deliberate efforts to deny us information," our source quoted him as saying, referring to accounting officers' failure to provide documents to support their expenses.

Only 6 percent of financial statements were clean. Most had problems with unsupported expenditures, unauthorized spending, excess expenditures and failure by civil servants to surrender loans.

In September, the government came under fire for introducing a 16 percent value added tax (VAT) on basic foodstuffs, like milk, when millions of its citizens struggle to eat more than once a day.

The treasury is trying to raise cash to help plug a budget deficit of about $3.8 billion.

The International Monetary Fund has said that raising revenues is not enough. The quality and efficiency of public spending must also improve.

"We hope that the leakages will be investigated by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission to ensure taxpayers start getting value," Michael Otieno of the National Taxpayers Association submitted.