Busia County spent over Ksh.4M to consult whether hospital should be level IV or V - Report

An audit report for the financial year ending June 30, 2024, has placed Busia Governor Paul Otuoma in the spotlight over alleged mismanagement of county funds.

The Senate County Public Accounts Committee is now demanding answers after revelations that the county spent more than Ksh.4 million on a consultant hired simply to confirm the classification level of a hospital already listed as Level 5.

“This reads like a fictional story, Governor, that you gave a consultancy Ksh.4.98 million to advise you on whether the hospital should be Level 5 when it was already Level 5. This one is drama,” CPAC Chairperson, Moses Kajwang

Kitui Senator Enock Wambua added, “What do you need consultancy services for? Who is supposed to consult for what? I think there is a requirement for a facility to move from one level to the other; it’s about service provision.”

Faced with tough questions, Governor Otuoma struggled to justify why the county hired a consultant for a task that squarely falls under the mandate of the Ministry of Health and the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council.

“There was just an arbitrary registration in the county here to say that this is now a facility Level 4 and Level 5,” Otuoma said.

Senators also raised concern over a sharp decline in Busia County’s revenue collection, warning that millions of shillings may have been lost without a trace.

They also questioned the sudden drop in parking fee collections, hinting at a possible scheme by county officials to siphon public funds.

“If you go to physical planning and development, that is 10. You collected Ksh.4.9 million prior year and last year you collected Ksh.2 million, so where did the rest of the money go?” Kajwang' stated.

Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna on his part said: “So if you were brought numbers that show a 70% decline, this is in the 2023/2024 financial year. You should have already asked for an explanation from your chief officer.”

In another damning revelation by the Auditor-General’s report, Busia County has been running official business through unofficial email accounts — a breach of protocol that not only exposes sensitive government information to risk but also points to deeper lapses in accountability and management.