The ministry of education is on the spot after it emerged that its officials including CS George Magoha received over Kshs10 million allowances in 2020 for paying visits to schools around the country.
According to the Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu the officials received Kshs10,214,400 to commission and monitor desk and locker distribution project in public schools.
In her report, Gathungu reveals that the huge expenses would not have been incurred if the ministry had allowed county education officials to undertake the role instead of officials from the ministry’s headquarters.
“The state department has established offices in all the counties and the staff in these offices could have been used with minimal or no costs. This expenditure was therefore against Section 79(2b) of the Public Finance Management Act, 2012, which states that a public officer should ensure that resources within the officer’s area of responsibility are used in a way that is lawful and authorized and effective, efficient, economical and transparent,” part of the report read.
The desk and locker project was one of the steps that intended to prevent Covid transmission in schools by ensuring that students observe social distance while in class as well as boost carpenters and artisans who had been hit hard by the pandemic.
Gathungu further noted that the ministry breached the law by opting to pay carpenters as well as contractors involved with the construction of classrooms, to aid the new CBC curriculum, through Mpesa.
“No explanation was provided for using a private application instead of using Ifmis being the national payment system as per the Public Financial Management Act, 2012. Under the circumstances, the management was therefore in breach of law,” Gathungu said.
The ministry spent a total of Kshs1,897,135,000 by sending officials across all the counties with payments of the same being made through Mpesa at the ministry headquarters.
The desks and locker project saw the ministry supply 622,357 lockers and chairs to 5,136 public primary schools and 5,254 secondary schools. Each of the selected schools received 70 lockers and 50 chairs.
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