In May 2024, Auditor General Nancy Gathungu addresses journalists at the official inauguration of the African Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (AFROSAI-E) Governing Board meeting in Kampala.
Auditor General Nancy Gathungu
A report provided by Auditor General Nancy Gathungu indicated substantial financial mismanagement in public colleges, potentially resulting in a loss of more than Sh14 billion in taxpayer monies.
According to the research, numerous universities failed to properly account for large sums of money spent, revealing catastrophic financial mismanagement within the country's present financial crisis.
The list with unexplained spending contained:
- Maasai Mara University led with Sh3 billion,
- Moi University (Sh1.6 billion),
- Technical University of Kenya (Sh1 billion),
- Kabianga University (Sh877 million), and Kenyatta University (Sh835 million).
The audit also found nine universities that jointly spent Sh559 million on irregular allowances, overpayments, penalties, and needless legal fees. These were:
- Kenyatta University spent Sh430 million on its shuttered Kigali campus,
- Moi University overpaid Sh56 million on a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
Gathungu criticized the expenditures, describing them as "a wasteful charge to public funds," highlighting the lack of sufficient documentation supporting the payments.
"Failure by the entities to fully support payments casts doubt on the authenticity of the reported expenditure," she wrote in the report that ends in June 2022.
According to Gathungu, unsubstantiated expenditures suggest a lack of internal controls and governance at the impacted universities.
She emphasized that universities had vulnerabilities in cash and imprest management, disorganized payrolls, lax store controls, and fee policies.
Other issues included questionable supplier contracts, procurement that exceeded allowed budgets, and financial mismanagement.
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