By Anderson Ojwang
Kisumu Governor Prof Anyang Nyong’o could be staring at a rotten egg in his face after an ambitious initiative to form Kisumu Revenue Board (KRB) to soar up revenue collections has been by rocked by a multi-million scandal.
In one of the patriotic moves by a section of the employees at the board who became whistle blowers and brought to the notice of Governor Nyong’o’ over what they termed as “ blatant corruption” at the facility.
In an Exclusive Interview with The Western Insight Newspaper, the employees who spoke on condition of anonymity claimed they noticed variance with the actual collection and reconciliation that were not adding up.
Similarly, they observed glitches with the system and manipulations of the accounts that raised eyes and concerns over the financial transactions in the facility.
‘We have been raising transactions and system queries on a daily basis with the Board Directors but there were dismissive. We therefore decided to pass the coded message to the Governor and his team to act. We are happy something is being done,” said one of the employees at the board who did not want to be quoted.
They claimed the actual financial reports and reconciliations were not adding up and that is why each employee declined to sign the financial reports because they were not reflective of actual revenue collection position.
They claimed reshuffles and changes in the staff by the board could have been a wider scheme to Fastrack the corruption because it was only after the changes were affected some malpractices were recorded.
But the Chairman of the Board Dr Hezron Ombewa denied the allegations saying some cartels were out to undermine the good work of the board after all loopholes have been sealed off by systems that have been put in place.
Dr Ombewa claimed that some of the disfranchised staff who were printing fake receipts and denying the county revenue were the people behind the cheap propaganda and the blackmail.
But in a quick rejoinder Mr. Steve Ogolo, who is a member of the board and chairman of the Revenue Enhancement Committee said the board was investigating the allegations and had directed 26 employees to proceed on annual leave to allow audit.
He denied claims that the board was accomplish to the pilferage saying they had boosted revenue collection from Sh 1.1B to sh 1.5B within the last one year.
Ogolo admitted that it was the Governor who raised the issue of alleged financial pilferage with them and they are addressing the concerns.
“We as a board came into office a year ago, at that time, the county revenue system had been switched off by the service provider. So the country was struggling to collect revenue until we got a new system,” he said
Mr. Ogolo said they onboarded a service provider, the Safaricom that came into place in December 15 2023 and it was a new system with no modules.
He said there were teething challenges at the initial stage ranging from the system to opposition by some employees and cartels from transiting to cashless from manual money collection.
“Some of the employees resisted the change or avoided using the new system and preferred manual cash collection may be due to lack of knowledge. But currently, we have embarked on job training,” he said.
He acknowledged claims of allegation of fraud and that is why measures have been taken measures to verify the claims and close gaps that may emerge,” he said.
Mr. Ogolo said after consultative meeting with the Governor and CEC Finance, it was agreed that a reputable External System Auditor be invited to audit the system .
Similarly, the service provider, The Safaricom was also asked to undertake their own audit and represent a report to the County Government for further action.
“This is a system which is new and we cannot say it is foolproof. That is why we are engaging external system auditor to help us with the task,” he said.
Mr. Ogolo said the board had made tremendous program and initiated various changes including decentralizing revenue base to the 35 wards.
He said all the revenue streams have been digitalized and currently the county is nearly 100 percent cashless.
The board recently appeared before the Kisumu County Assembly that wanted them to shade more light on the allegations and to take a possible action should there be need.
