The State Department for Early Learning and Basic Education is on the spot over irregular disbursements of free education funds and subsidies respectively as well as Implementation of the School Feeding Programme. Auditor General Nancy Gathungu in a report for the 2021/22 financial year said there were various anomalies in the disbursement of funds and in the procurement of foodstuffs for  various schools.

With regards to Free Primary Education Funds she said that her office is not in a position to confirm the authenticity of the Sh9 billion that was disbursed to schools   while on the School Feeding Programme she noted that the money in question amounts to Sh1.2 billion Reads the report: “The transfers include an amount of Sh9,062,694,606 relating to funds disbursed for free primary schools during the year. However, analysis of the Free Primary Education data revealed various anomalies.” It adds: “The statement of receipts and payments reflects an amount of Sh30, 546,359,898 in respect of transfers to other Government Units.

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The expenditure includes an amount of Sh19, 971,035,325 in respect of transfers to National Government entities out of which an amount of Sh1,196,296,000 was spent on the purchase of various foodstuffs for the school feeding programme.”

Duplicate bank accounts On free primary education the anomalies noted include schools having duplicate bank accounts, Schools Sharing similar Teachers Service Commission (TSC) Registration Numbers, Schools either not having TSC Codes or having unknown codes. With regards to disbursements of the funds to Schools with duplicate bank accounts, the report notes that despite 38 schools sharing bank accounts they received disbursements totalling Sh1.2 million while 436 schools without TSC codes received a total disbursement of Sh14.7 million during the year under review.

Another 3,486 schools that were assigned a TSC code with different code formats from those provided by the State Department received disbursements amounting to Sh102.3 million while another 24,119 schools that were sharing TSC registration numbers received disbursements amounting to Sh737.7 million  during the year under review. Said Gathungu: “In the circumstances, the accuracy and authenticity of the disbursements of Sh9, 062,694,606 for free primary education funds for the year ended 30 June, 2022 could not be confirmed.”

On disbursement of Free Day Secondary School Education Subsidies, she noted that a review of the National Education Management Information System (NEMIS) system in relation to the capitation disbursements schedule to secondary schools revealed various anomalies. According to her the anomalies include disbursements of Sh6.3 million to day Secondary Schools that shared bank accounts, which continued to recur in subsequent disbursements without being detected and corrected.

In addition, she also noted that a review of the schools lists on capitation per quarter reports revealed six schools that operated one bank account for both operations and tuition funds received total payments of Sh40.9 million. “In the circumstances, the accuracy and authenticity of the subsidies totaling Sh47, 208,815 for free day secondary school education could not be confirmed,” added Gathungu.

With regards to procurement of School Feeding Supplies that included 107 000 bags of rice comprising of 47,000 bags – Ahero Sindano and 60,000 bags of Pishori rice, 25,749 bags of 90kg beans, 12,780 jerricans of 20 litres,  5,112 bales of 20kg salt and 194,421 bags of 25kg corn soya blend, Gathungu regretted that the State Department adopted a framework contract from Public Works and requested quotations from only one firm for supply of corn soya from a list of 28 suppliers, three firms for supply of salt and five firms for supply of vegetable oil.

This she noted is contrary to provisions of Section 114(1) of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act, 2015 which provides that a procuring entity may enter into a framework through open tender if the procurement value is within the thresholds prescribed under regulation to this Act.

Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) is on the spot over various financial irregularities.

Auditor General Nancy Gathungu in a report for the year ending June 2021 fingered the institution for breaching the law with regards to various procurements and contracts it entered into.  Among the issues she has raised concerns with include regular board expenses, irregular procurement of consultancy services as well as irregular staff mortgage and car loan reserve fund.

With regards to the Procurement of Consultancy Services where the entity paid Sh2.6 million to a consultant for provision of Change Management Program, Emotional Intelligence and Conflict Resolution that took place between December 14 and 19, 2020, Gathungu said that a review of documents provided for audit revealed that the consultant was procured directly and there was no evidence of the measures taken to ensure that the price was fair and reasonable and compared well with known prices of goods, works or services in the, as provided under Section 103(e) of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act, 2015.

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She further noted that while the notification of award was issued on December 11, 2020 and accepted by the Consultant on December 14, 2020, this coincided with the date the Program, a move which raised doubts on whether the procedure for notification of intention to enter into a contract as required by the provisions of Section 87 of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act, 2015 was followed.

The teachers service commission, TSC is on the spot over payment of excess salaries amounting to ksh385 million. This has ignited concerns over the integrity of the commission’s multibillion-shilling payroll.

An audit of the payroll conducted by the auditor general revealed that TSC paid ksh33 million in excess of salary to 32 teachers alone.

In total, there was over ksh352,853,152 in excess payouts flagged during the audit of the TSC’s books of accounts.

The overpayment granted to teachers and staff was exposed after failure by TSC to explain the origin of the payments and how they piled up to the hundreds of millions.

“The origin and the build-up of the salary overpayments have not been explained,” reads the report by Auditor General Nancy Gathungu.

Gathungu further confirmed her doubts doubts that TSC would not recover the money.

“The repayment period for the recovery of the outstanding amounts is beyond the retirement age of the respective teachers,” the auditor said in respect of the 32 teachers.

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Gathungu added that in the ensuing circumstances, “the recoverability of the ‘salary overpayment’ balance is, therefore, doubtful”.

The auditor cited a case of Sh10,416,781, which is part of the Sh352 million, that the commission had not received payment for over two years, “casting doubts on the recovery of the [entire] amount.”

The auditor said the review also revealed that the commission has no proper internal controls to avert losses through such payments.

“The existence of an effective internal control to safeguard loss of public resources could be confirmed,” she explained.

The revelation escalates concerns about how porous payrolls and lists for entities whose interventions involve the disbursement of cash are.

TSC is among state agencies with huge budgets. In the current financial year, it has been allocated Sh296 billion.

Several audits have flagged the education sector for irregularities in the disbursement of cash from school fees subsidies to capitation fees for technical colleges.

The Vocational and Technical Training department domiciled at the Education ministry may have lost more than Sh6.2 billion in the last financial year from inflated student numbers and unsupported disbursements to colleges.

Part of the amount was Sh2.5 billion, which the audit revealed was disbursed during the Covid-19 lockdown when students were not in session.

The Education ministry was recently called for failing to account for Sh2 billion in respect of government subsidies to primary and secondary schools, and tertiary colleges.

Instances of disbursement to non-existent schools, inflation of student numbers and duplication of allocations were pointed out.

The commission has also been flagged for poor management of salary advances to staff, some of whom the audit established were given additional advances before settling those that were due.

Gathungu said it was in doubt if the TSC would recover Sh2,125,414 “described as undefined recoveries whose composition and support documents were not provided for audit review.”

“Further, Sh4,264,665 in respect of 145 staff had no movement over the last 12 months,” the audit revealed.

“Management did not give any reason for non-recovery of the salary advances.”

TSC has also been queried over disbursements of cash to counties after the commission failed to provide a breakdown of the amounts owed by each county for audit review.

Gathungu has also queried non-remittance of Pay as You Earn tax of over Sh2.2 billion that was due from 5,412 commission staff and 25 staffers of the secretariat.

The audit revealed that the deductions were not done on the grounds that the employees were persons with disabilities.

But Gathungu said a review of the payroll revealed that employees with special needs had special codes 2-9 yet the ones paid had code 0.

The auditor said this denoted that they are not people with special needs and had not been exempted from paying income tax by the Kenya Revenue Authority.

“Failure to deduct and remit Pay As You Earn (PAYE) tax is contrary to the Income Tax Act CAP 470. Consequently, the management was in breach of the law,” she said.

Auditor general Nancy Gathungu has released a list of documents that each school should submit for review.

Following the statement by Early learning and basic education PS Julius Jwan, all schools will be audited for the last two financial years.

The schools therefore are supposed to present documents dated 20220/2021 and 2021/2022 financial year

“Secondary schools will undergo financial audit whereas primary schools will have their enrollment data verified from the County Director of Education,” Jwan said.

Jwan added that in preparation, CDE has to submit lists of public schools and their enrolment, acknowledgement of FDSE and enrolment data for the county in the year under review.”

Secondary school heads will on the other hand present:

• school registers,
• financial statements,
• cashbooks for all accounts,
• bank statements,
• vouchers to support payment,
• list of all non-teaching staff,
• letter of approval for RMI expenditure and
• list of teaching staff.

Jwan clarified that the auditing exercise will go on, even on weekends and instructed school heads to avail all required documents.

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“CDEs and SCDEs should advise the schools that the auditors have unfettered access to the documents information and the school,” he said.

The statement was sent out to all county directors of education.

Previously, the Auditor would only asses state departments in the ministry of education.

Jwan was speaking during a past event where he urged school heads to co-operate.

“The government audits public institutions so they are going to do ten per cent in every county,” Jwan said.

The schools will range from the national, extra county, and county to sub-county schools.

The state department led by Jwan would appear in Parliament to respond to queries on how money was spent in schools.

“This is money that was disbursed in their own right so I think it’s time they are held accountable,” Jwan said.

However, Jwan said the main reason for auditing is to hold individual heads and not an umbrella department.

School principals are going to be held accountable for expenses on resources in public secondary schools.

For the first time, the ministry of education will oversee the auditing of public secondary schools in the country.

According to the Early learning and Basic education PS Julius Jwan, government owned institutions will also be part of the audit process.

In the past, the Auditor would only asses state departments in the ministry of education.

Jwan was speaking during the Anglican Churches of Kenya school principals’ association in Nairobi.

“The government audits public institutions so they are going to do ten percent in every county,” Jwan said.

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All the national, extra county, county and sub-county schools will face the audit.

The state department, led by Jwan would appear in Parliament to respond to queries on how money was spent in schools.

“This is money that was disbursed in their own right so I think it’s time they are held accountable,” Jwan said.

However, Jwan said the main reason for auditing is to hold individual heads and not an umbrella department accountable for the expenses.

He dismissed the notion that the schools are being audited to unfold irregularities in the management.

“An audit is not done because there are irregularities, it is done to ensure systems are functioning well,” he said.

Jwan added that school heads are allowed to manage a lot of resources that require auditing.

For instance, national schools which have more than 2,000 students pay up to Sh45,000 yearly.

“Some of our schools manage more resources compared to some SAGAs in the ministry,” Jwan added.

The Education Ministry, led by Cabinet secretary professor George Magoha is on the spot for denying the Auditor-General access to a student’s database, in a bid to facilitate scrutiny of Sh60 billion expenditure. This move has raised untold fears concerning the transparency in the use of free education funds.

The State auditor general confirmed impossibility to verify the expenditure of Sh59,541,584,343 since she was unable to access the student enrolment data in the National Education Management Information System (Nemis), caused by restrictions by the State Department of Early Learning and Basic Education.

According to the Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu, several anomalies were noted in the transfer of education subsidies to schools.

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She maintained that the ministry transferred free education subsidies to 9,024 secondary schools amounting to Sh36,739,481,231 yet the data on the number of students per school and county at any time of disbursement could not be verified.

“The reason for non-verification was due to inability to access the student enrollment data in the National Education Management Information System (Nemis) as a result of restrictions by the Management,” Gathungu told Parliament in a report.

The ministry declined to avail the data despite Gathungu’s  warning that failure to grant access to the Nemis system contravenes Section 9(e) (i) of the Public Audit Act, 2015.

According to the Act, the Auditor-General or an authorised officer shall have powers of unrestricted access to all books, records, returns, reports, electronic or otherwise and other documents of entities listed under Article 229(4) of the Constitution.

This implies that the Auditor-General, or an officer authorised should enjoy unrestricted access to any property or premises used or held by State organs or public entities covered by Article 229(4) of the Constitution and subject to audit under the Act.

“It was therefore not possible to validate the data used for disbursement of subsidies to schools,” she confirmed.

“In the circumstances, the accuracy and validity of subsidies to Public Corporations of Sh59,541,584,343 could not be confirmed.”

Ms Gathungu said the ministry disbursed a total of Sh57.01 billion as a subsidy for free day secondary school.

She said although the management of the schools receiving subsidy funds are required to upload an acknowledgement receipt in the Nemis system as evidence of the funds in the school’s bank account, none of the listed schools raised an acknowledgement receipt in the system.

“Further, the disbursement schedule included payments amounting to Sh137,084,111 made to 225 secondary schools whose bank account numbers format differed significantly from the format of bank accounts for banks supported by the national banking system,” she said.

The auditor said there were no confirmation receipts from the benefiting schools. “It was therefore not possible to confirm whether the schools’ bank account numbers were correctly captured and the concerned schools received the funds,” she said.

On the capitation, Ms Gathungu said the disbursement report provided for audit verification including Sh8.3 million that was disbursed to schools that had the same bank account numbers even though the names and sub-county of the schools were different indicating an error in the funds’ transmission.

The anomaly was not explained and there was no evidence of refunds provided to indicate the correction of the error, Ms Gathungu said.

She also flagged a disbursement of Sh638,435,316 to secondary schools in October 2020 that comprised transfers to 3,808 schools in respect of operation account and 3,810 schools in respect of tuition account.

“Although the management (ministry) explained the amounts were as a result of some schools that had not received their earlier capitation monies for reasons that they had not updated form one admissions data in the NEMIS system together with unexplained loss of data in the system, the basis of identification of the beneficiary schools was not supported by any documentation in form of claims from the benefiting schools or evidenced by any duly approved management report or exception report from the system to indicate that the benefiting schools had not received the earlier disbursement,” she said.

The auditor said a sample of the school included on the list receiving the disbursement had been included in the schools that had received their regular disbursement on time and therefore the payment was a duplication. Ms Gathungu said the ministry did not explain the anomaly.

In addition, Ms Gathungu said payments made to 31 schools were made to the bank account whose format did not conform to the national banking system of coding.

She also raised the red flag on an amount of Sh22,140,000 paid to 82 secondary schools in the Arid and Semi-Arid Land (ASAL) areas to support the needy students in the ASALs.

Ms Gathungu said no documentation was provided to support the basis of identification of the needy schools.

Auditor General Nancy Gathungu has questioned the procurement of computers and desks for the Competency-Based Curriculum at a cost of ksh2 billion.

In a report she tabled in parliament late last week, Gathungu accused the State Department of Early Learning and Basic Education of a breach to the law in undertaking the exercise.

Out of the ksh 2 billion, ksh1.9 billion was to supply a total of 70 desks and 50 lockers to primary and secondary schools respectively so as to fulfil the Ministry of Health protocols on social distancing due to the Covid-19.

The move was also meant to stimulate the economy by providing job opportunities to local artisans while Sh199.9 million was paid to a firm for the supply and delivery of 2,040 computers to 200 secondary schools countrywide.

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With respect to desks, Gathungu also fingered officials who were paid Sh10.2 million as subsistence allowance from the said money.

Auditor also observed that the expenditure of Sh10.2 million was against Section 79(2b) of Public Finance and Management Act 2012, which states that a public officer employed in a State organ or public entity should ensure prudent and transparent use of resources.

“A total of Sh10,214,400 was paid to staff from the State department headquarters as daily subsistence allowances to monitor distribution of desks and lockers to their respective destinations in all counties notwithstanding (the fact) that the department has established offices countrywide and the staff in these offices could have been used with minimal or no cost,” said Gathungu.

Gathungu regretted that the department proceeded with the procurement yet records to ascertain value for money, quality of the suppliers, how uniform prices were arrived at and competition among artisans were not provided for audit review.

She said details on how the needs assessment was identified were not provided, adding that social distancing in secondary schools could not have been achieved through an increased number of lockers without a corresponding increase in the number of classrooms or student population.

“Authority to Incur Expenditures totaling Sh1,897,135,000 dated October 1, 2020 were sent to all 47 counties but funding was not effected and instead, actual payments were centralised at the head office using a Safaricom application not prescribed by the Treasury,” Auditor states.

The Auditor General of the republic of kenya, Nancy Gathungu has blamed the Ministry of Education for doing very little in regard to providing directions on how Guidance and Counseling (G&C) should be carried out in schools.

The Performance Audit Report on Fire Safety Performance in Secondary Schools by the Ministry of Education dated September 2020 revealed that despite the Ministry establishing a GC department at the headquarters, the department had only two staff.

The audit, which sampled 42 schools in five counties based on the prevalence of fire incidences between 2015 and 2019, revealed that the understaffing at the Ministry’s G&C department undermined the effectiveness of administration of guidance and counseling in all schools in the country.

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The safety standard manual for schools of 2008 (section 6.9) requires guidance and counseling to be strengthened at school level through providing resources of creating a conducive environment for effective guidance and counseling.

The 2015 Basic Education Regulations necessitated the establishment of the G&C programme after the abolishment of corporal punishment and expulsion of students in 2001.

According to AG, most of fire incidences were as a result of indiscipline cases hence the need for guidance and counseling to act as essential corrective measure focusing on moral values and character formation of and counseling to act as essential effective measure focusing on moral values and character formation of the leaners.

Despite schools having G&C departments, the Ministry has not provided the Board of Management (BoM) members with policy guidelines and regulations on how guidance and counseling should be implemented.

This has therefore caused minimal impact in reducing indiscipline cases in schools. “Guidance and Counseling teachers are still in need of professional training so as to be effective in providing this crucial service in the schools,” noted Auditor General Nancy Gathungu in the report signed on September 22, 2020.

From the 42 sampled schools, 31 schools didn’t have qualified teachers to offer G&C although 36 of the sampled schools (representing 85 per cent) were building their capacity by taking guidance and counseling teachers for short term courses in Guidance and Counseling. Teachers in 11 schools (6%) had a master’s degree in counseling, those in 2 schools (5%) had a diploma in guidance and counseling and those in 4 schools (9%) had a certificate in guidance and counseling.

The report also found that most schools lack private rooms where counselling sessions are conducted. For effective guidance and counseling, schools are required to have a secluded rooms and lockable cabinets for confidentiality of information.