Controller of Budget gave a wrong report on Meru County, finance executive says

Meru County government has faulted the controller of budget (CoB) for publishing an erroneous nine month budget implementation report for the 2022/2023 financial year.

According to Meru finance chief officer Charles Mwenda, the report by the CoB indicated that Meru had exaggerated the county expenditure by more than Sh400 million.

Mwenda said the nine months report by CoB indicated that Meru had spent Sh1.2 billion on operations yet the actual expenditure was Sh774 million.

“For instance, the controller of budget report indicates that we spent Sh264 million on domestic travel yet both the executive and the assembly spent Sh240 million in nine months.   The report showed that we spent Sh91 million on fuel yet the actual spending was Sh31 million,” Mwenda said.

He said the county’s entire budget was Sh70 million in the last financial year yet the controller of budget reported Sh91 million was spent in nine months.

On low development spending, finance executive Monica Kathono said the county had a deficit of Sh1.1 billion in development funding in the previous financial year.

Kathono said the development budget has also been depressed by a high wage bill.

“In the 2022/2023 financial year, the development budget was Sh3.6 billion but the actual receipts were Sh2.5 billion. This is after some grants failed to materialise. We are also spending more than Sh5 billion on the wagebill,” Kathono said.

The finance executive however said they have initiated measures to cut down on the wage bill as well as increasing local revenue.

She said the county government was introducing a cashless revenue collection system to curb losses.

“We are also in the process passing a finance bill that will introduce new revenue streams to raise more money for the county. A payroll audit is also underway to address wastage of resources,” she said.