The Laikipia County Co-Operative Development Fund could soon stop disbursing loans after the fund’s management failed to recover loans amounting to Ksh. 7,429,673. The amount has been overdue since the 30th of June, 2021. What is worrying most people in the county is that the loans were never insured or backed by any collateral.
It has since emerged that the recoverability of the overdue loans is doubtful, according to sources within the fund. The source further revealed to The Weekly Vision that the fund’s board failed to remit taxes on allowances paid to members of the board amounting to Ksh. 306,000 as of June 30, 2021. This amount relates to tax deducted from the Fund’s Board of Directors’ allowances and not remitted to the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA).
A furthee analysis of the unremitted tax balance of Ksh. 306,000 relates to the year under review amounting to Ksh. 135,900 and the prior year’s amount of Ksh. 170,100. It is worth noting that failure to remit taxes to KRA denies the government much-needed revenue and leads to additional costs to the fund in penalties and interest, which could easily have been avoided. The board also failed to check the overpayment of Ksh. 778,549, which was due to various savings and credit cooperative societies and had not been refunded for over a year.
Further, no ageing analysis was provided to confirm how long they have been outstanding. As a result, the accuracy of the overpayments of Ksh. 778,549 for the year under review (2020-2021) could be confirmed.
