Mombasa County officers' lavish travel spending exposed in report

Mombasa County has come under scrutiny after a report from the Controller of the Budget revealed that millions were spent on travel allowances for both domestic and foreign trips.

According to the county government's budget implementation review report for the first half of FY 2023/2024, county executive officers allocated a significant amount of funds to travel, with foreign travel expenditures totalling Sh18.09 million.

The report detailed how the County Assembly spent Sh5.97 million, while the County Executive accounted for Sh12.12 million of the total.

At the same time, the domestic travel expenses during the same period were even higher, reaching Sh91.25 million.

The report revealed the county assembly spent Sh19.31 million while the county executive spent Sh71.94 million for domestic trips.

The trips included destinations such as the USA, South Korea, Japan, Dubai, China, South Africa, and Zambia.

The County's approved FY 2023/24 budget was Sh14.70 billion, comprising Sh5.43 billion (36.9 per cent) allocated for development and Sh9.27 billion (63.1 per cent) for recurrent programmes.

This budget represented a 7.3 per cent increase compared to the previous financial year, which had an approved budget of Sh13.70 billion, with Sh4.40 billion for development expenditure and Sh9.30 billion for recurrent expenditure.

Detailed breakdowns

Detailed breakdowns in the report highlighted specific expenditures, such as Sh926,100 spent by two county executive officers on a single trip to South Africa from September 30, 2023, to October 7, 2023, for a workshop on maximizing personal productivity and positive thinking.

Another executive officer spent Sh1,143,000 to attend the 78th United Nations General Assembly sessions and side meetings in New York.

Another county official used Sh433,090 to travel to Busan, South Korea.

Between October 15, 2023, and November 26, 2023, another county executive went to Japan, spending Sh1,010,951 to attend a JICA training.

Additionally, two county officials spent a total of Sh1,487,120 to attend the UAE COP 28 in Dubai from November 29, 2023, to December 12, 2023.

In December, Sh528,800 was spent for an executive to attend the African Association for Public Administration and Management's 42nd Annual Roundtable Conference in Livingstone, Zambia.

The report also revealed a high level of pending bills, amounting to Sh3.92 billion as of December 31, 2023.

Further, it highlighted the use of a manual payroll system, with personnel emoluments amounting to Sh244.37 million processed manually, accounting for 7.6 per cent of the total payroll cost.

The Controller of the Budget's office warned that the manual payroll is prone to abuse and could lead to the loss of public funds due to the lack of proper controls.

In response to these findings, the county treasury has been recommended to improve the vote book and budgetary control to ensure expenditures remain within the approved budget. The Treasury was also urged to identify and address issues causing delays in implementing development programmes and projects.