Audit: TSC yet to recover Sh211 million in teacher overpayments despite recouping Sh222 million
In her audit report for the financial year ending June 2024, Gathungu disclosed that TSC had overpaid teachers Sh433.9 million, blaming the situation on manual reporting systems that resulted in inefficiencies.
The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has managed to recover Sh222.3 million from teachers who were overpaid, following payroll irregularities linked to the use of manual reporting systems.
Auditor General Nancy Gathungu, in her latest report, however, revealed that the commission is yet to recover Sh211.6 million still owed by the affected teachers.
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In her audit report for the financial year ending June 2024, Gathungu disclosed that TSC had overpaid teachers Sh433.9 million, blaming the situation on manual reporting systems that resulted in inefficiencies.
“Management indicated that the overpayments had grown over the years due to the previous manual reporting systems that were inefficient. Further, management through various mechanisms adopted recovery of salary overpayments, amounting to Sh222,305,447 for the year under review from payroll and other avenues,” she said.
Her report notes that more than two-thirds of the salary overpayments had remained outstanding for over a year.
“Review of the ageing analysis on the salary overpayments provided for audit revealed that overpayments amounting to Sh296,409,143 (68 per cent) had been outstanding for periods exceeding one year,” Gathungu said.
She acknowledged that while the TSC has made some progress in recovering the lost funds, a significant amount remains uncollected.
“While the commission has recovered Sh222.3 million, salary overpayments totalling Sh211.6 million remain outstanding,” Gathungu added.
According to the Auditor General, the total overpayments accounted for 30 per cent of the Sh1.43 billion the commission was owed by various parties as at June 30, 2024.
The TSC, which handles one of the largest salary budgets in government, spent Sh340.07 billion in the year ending June 2024, largely directed towards the payment of teachers’ salaries.
The Controller of Budget (CoB) attributed this to the commission’s expansive role in teacher management.
“The high allocation for the TSC is attributed to its vital role in teacher management for primary and secondary schools under the Teacher Resource Management Programme and General Administration, Planning and Support Services Programme,” the CoB said.
The Auditor General and the Controller of Budget both highlighted persistent payroll management weaknesses across government agencies, including national and county governments. These include cases of salaries paid manually, employment of ghost workers and payments outside the official human resource systems.
In the 2023/24 financial year, the CoB noted that counties paid Sh3 billion manually in salaries during the first quarter alone, a figure which escalated to Sh7 billion within six months. Most of these payments were made to casual employees, with audits consistently flagging the lack of supporting documentation to prove the existence of some of the people purportedly paid.
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