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The Clerk of Kwale County Assembly Fatuma Hassan Mwalupa and Speaker Seth Mwatale Kamanza are staring at a possible impeachment over corruption allegations.
The MCAs have already dismissed the County Public Service Board and further proposed names of those they want to take over as new members.
The new members could be sworn in to pave the way for the impeachment of the clerk who has been grilled over various corruption allegations by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC).
Speaker Seth Mwatela Kamanza is also on the chopping board for collaborating with the clerk to allegedly defraud the assembly.
Apart from corruption, a section of the MCAs are accusing the clerk of being arrogant and non-committed to solving their grievances.
The Auditor General Report for 2022/2023 puts the assembly on the spotlight and the MCAs are convinced that the clerk, who served in acting capacity since 2019 before being confirmed last year.
Some of the audit issues raised include employment of members of Staff above the approved Ceiling
The audit states that the County Assembly had a total of one hundred and twenty-six (126) staff serving in various positions contrary to the guidelines of the Commission on Revenue Allocation through Circular ref CRA/FA/01VOL.11(22) on County Government recurrent expenditure ceilings for financial year 2018/19 dated 28 June, 2018, which recommended the number of staff members to be one hundred (100). In addition, one hundred and fifty-nine (159) members were engaged on temporary terms and attached to the Members of County Assembly and the Speaker.
She is also accused of overseeing non-Compliance with One Third Basic Salary Rule where review of payroll records revealed nine members of staff had committed their salaries beyond the allowable two-thirds in the month of June, 2023 while four ( members of staff earned Nil salaries in the month of August and one ( member of staff earned Nil salary in the month of October, 2022.
This was contrary to the provisions of Section 19(3) of the Employment Act, 2007 which states that the total amount of all deductions that may be made by an employer from the wages of his employee at any one time shall not exceed two thirds of such wages or such additional or other amount as may be prescribed by the Minister either generally or in relation to a specified employer or employee or class of employers or employees or any trade or industry.
She is also being accused for overseeing Stalled Construction of County Assembly Offices where a contract for the construction of County Assembly offices was awarded to a local Company on 12 February, 2016 at a contract sum of Kshs.508,549,884. However, due to poor performance of the contractor, the contract was terminated on 15 August, 2017 upon which another contractor was engaged at a contract sum of Kshs.624,206,006, out of which Kshs.408,654,300 was to undertake completion of the construction of the County Assembly offices while the balance of Kshs.215,551,706 was to be paid to the sub-contractors.
The audit states that following a circular from The National Treasury on County infrastructure expenditure that set the expenditure limit for County Assembly offices, the contract sum was set at Kshs.350,771,955 comprising the price of completion of the County Assembly offices and which was scaled down to Kshs.259,178,875. An addendum contract agreement was issued on 18 March, 2019 while the contract price for sub-contractor was scaled down to Kshs.91,593,080. The initial contract completion date was on 15 September, 2019 but was extended to 22 May, 2020. On 10 March, 2021, the main contractor through an unreferenced letter requested the Clerk for termination of the contract.
The Clerk of the County Assembly terminated the contract on 2 April, 2022. At the date of termination, the value of works done as per final valuation amounted to Kshs.155,985,743 while physical verification of the project in September, 2023 revealed that works had stalled.
“ In the circumstances, the value for money of the expenditure Kshs.155,985,743 incurred on the project could not be confirmed,” the report states
The clerk has previously been grilled over suspect and dubious expenditure on conference activities where Kshs.15,902,050 w was not supported by formal requisitions by the user departments, procurement plan and details on how the service providers were identified, selected and determination of prices charged.
This is according to the 2021/2022 audit report which concluded that in the circumstances, the occurrence of hospitality supplies and services of Kshs.15,902,050 could not be confirmed.
In a separate audit query,examination of the motor vehicle records revealed that the County Assembly had six motor vehicles. Review of the work tickets revealed that only two vehicles were serviceable and in use at time of audit while four vehicles were grounded, prompting the Management to hire vehicles from local car hire service providers.
Further, details of the defects and reasons why the same had not been rectified were not provided for audit review. In addition, the Management did not provide work tickets for two vehicles which were previously used by the Speaker to the County Assembly before their grounding.
The audit stated that the clerk who is Under the Accounting Officer has not managed assets of the County Assembly in such a way as to ensure that it achieves value for money in acquiring, using or disposing of the assets.
The 2021 Audit also questioned the termination of employment contract of the previous clerk of the County Assembly.It states that the County Assembly Service Board terminated the contract of the Clerk of the County Assembly through a letter dated 11 December, 2019 referenced KWL/CA/BD/VOL.1(31).
His employment contract was eventually terminated through a court process
in May, 2022. Following the suspension of the Clerk, the Deputy Clerk who is Fatuma was appointed in an acting capacity as the Clerk to the County Assembly via Letter Ref. CA/KWL/CASB/ ADM/ VOL1(5) dated 12 December, 2019.
However, as at the time of the audit in July, 2022, the Deputy Clerk was still acting as the Clerk of the County Assembly contrary to Section 34(3) of Public Service Commission Act No.10 of 2017 which states that an officer may be appointed in an acting capacity for a period of at least thirty days but not exceeding a period of six months.
