Barely 24 hours after Uasin Gishu County Senator Jackson Mandago was arrested and arraigned in court over his involvement in the Ksh. 1.1b Finland Education scandal, fresh details have emerged of how the county may have lost even money in other dubious deals.
Governor Jonathan Bii has exposed how his predecessor presided over a scandalous regime adding that he inherited 109 cases with an estimated financial impact of Ksh.496, 814,946 pending against the County Executive as of 30th June 2022.
Further, an examination of records revealed that over 700 court cases were pending against the County Executive. Mr Mandago had claimed that he had put in place several measures to deal with the increasing court cases including handling the matters in-house, operationalizing the Office of the County Attorney, out-of-court settlements and establishment of an independent fund to deal with the court cases.
The report also reveals that the statement of receipts and payments reflects compensation of employee’s amount of Ksh.3, 612,444,534 which includes Ksh.222, 014,340 paid to the Pension Fund and other social security contributions.
However, a review of the payrolls and payment vouchers in respect of the Local Authorities Provident Fund (LAPFUND), Local Authority Pension Trust (LAPTRUST) and Public Services Superannuation Scheme (GOK PSSS) reflected a gross amount of Ksh. 194,561,899 in respect of pension contributions for 7 months.
Remittance records indicated that Ksh.192, 361,734 was paid resulting in an underpayment of Ksh.2, 200,165 which means that the accuracy and completeness of social security contributions of Ksh.222, 014,340 could not be confirmed. The report further reveals a pending staff payables balance of Ksh.51, 360,496 as of 30th June 2022, however, a review of records reflected unremitted retirement benefits contributions to the pension funds of Ksh.297,813,110 resulting in an unexplained and undisclosed variance of Ksh.246,452,614.
The management did not provide a satisfactory explanation for the failure to settle the bills in the year when they were incurred or paid as a first charge. This was contrary to Section 53 (a)(1) of the Retirement Benefits Act, 1997 which requires an employer to remit the deduction from the employee’s emoluments to a pension scheme within fifteen (15) days of the deduction.
