The Ministry of Sports is on the spot over questionable expenditures amounting to close to Sh800 million spread between the tenure of former Cabinet Secretaries Ali Wario and Rashid Echesa.
An audit report of the year ended June 2018 blames the two for the loss of millions due to slow implementation of Jubilee flagship projects, like the state-of-the art stadiums, the funding of MPs trip to 2018 World Cup in Russia and procurement flaws.
Auditor General Edward Ouko has raised the red flag over the unbudgeted disbursement and excess expenditure to the National Sports Fund amounting to Sh67million.
Ouko faulted the transfer of Sh404 million from the ministry to the Fund as special grants without any budgetary provision and the knowledge of the fund’s management.
“The fund management was not involved in the procurement process for payments made from this funding, included in this amount was Sh63 million meant for the Commonwealth Games but the Fund spent a total of Sh131 million for this event, resulting to unauthorised over expenditure of Sh67 million,” said Ouko.
“The over expenditure was funded through re-allocation of funds meant for World Rally Championships held in Naivasha without approval of the National Treasury,” he said.
As a result, Ouko affirmed that it has not been possible to ascertain if transfer of special grants to the fund was lawful and whether the resultant expenditure on Commonwealth Games was a proper charge to public funds together with the resulting excess vote of Sh67 million.
He also took issue with irregular transfer of Sh2.5 million to two MPs from the fund for purposes of catering for their expenses during the World Cup in Russia.
He said the MPs served under the Parliamentary Service Commission and all their expenses should have been paid from there.