Auditor General unmasks Sh8.9 Billion financial impropriety of Sports, Arts and Social Development Fund

A damning Sports Fund audit report by the diligent Auditor General has debunked an erstwhile carefully curated cloak of innocence Sports CS Amina Mohamed walks around with after the Anniversary Towers based auditors revealed a whopping sum Sh8.9 Billion unaccounted for.

Machakos Town Member of Parliament Victor Munyaka and his gluttonous Parliamentary Committee on Sports, Culture and Tourism are also flagged for 'utilizing' Ksh1.2 million from the Sports Fund for some nondescript retreat in Mombasa. The Auditor General highly suspects the dishonorable members of parliament just collected the money without going for the seminar.

There are no reports, no findings and nothing concerning the retreat. Yet, money was allocated for tickets.

Record Kenyan champions Gor Mahia are among the beneficiaries of the mismanagement of the multibillion-shilling Sports Fund according to the Auditor General Nancy Gathungu.

Gor have never shied from displaying their begging bowls whenever preparing for continental matches in the past with the Ministry of Sports, Culture and Heritage and other well-wishers occasionally bailing them out.

However, the begging culture could potentially land them in trouble and members of the Sports Fund board as according to the review of the Fund’s accounts as of June 2021 revealed that the club irregularly received 8 million shillings.

Save from Gor, the Auditor exposed that Ksh 529.9 million was disbursed to organisations that are not registered by the commissioner of sports raising questions on whether the board did its homework before authorizing the transfer of the funds.

Cumulatively, the Fund is on the spot for irregular disbursement of 8.9 billion shillings in the year under review, according to the Star. Apart from the money wired to Gor, the Fund is on the spot for Ksh 6.94 billion shillings for the development of sports and Sh1.8 billion for social development including universal health.

Further, questions were asked on the payment of Sh.218 million for the promotion and development of arts and Sh.66 million for monitoring and evaluation. Gathungu flagged the payments for lack of supporting documents to back the transfers to government agencies and sports organisations as well as bills of quantities, governing body minutes, designs, approved plans and monitoring and evaluation reports for audit review.

The Fund that became operational in 2019 is also being pointed fingers to for Sh1.2 million irregular procurement of air tickets for 29 Members of Parliament. According to the Star, Gathungu revealed that the money was paid to a travel agent for the procurement of return tickets to Mombasa, for a parliamentary committee retreat under the World Under20 Championship.

She said although authority was sought from the Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed to approve the expenditure for ministry staff, only four received tickets and to add salt to the injury, the names of the 29 MPs whose expenses were to be catered for by Parliamentary Service Commission were not included in the approved request.