Faulty Ifmis causes loss of billions of shillings

Finance bosses of 11 counties logged into the Integrated Financial Management System (Ifmis), one of the most secure government structures, various times in the last financial year.

Despite the system having several layers of safeguards and mandatory requirements for authorisation before access, the executives missed the buttons that directed them to their county records and instead pressed the national government accounts.

Somehow, they had access and necessary log-in credentials to move around the system. All this time, they still did not realise they were at the wrong place.

The county ministers then keyed into the system that only grants access and rights, depending on a user’s responsibility, to billions of shillings of erroneous budget lines that do not exist in devolved governments.

It is reported that the amount stolen is Sh10 billion.

BOGUS REPORTS

Some of the officers would key hundreds of millions of shillings into non-existent State House functions, free primary education, economic policy and national planning, rail transport, government clearing services, among others.

Ideally, Ifmis should reject any allocations not approved and never allow expenditure unless an entity has the funds.

As expenditure happened, the system would then automatically generate reports that would be accessed by the office of the Auditor-General later.

Samburu would end up with an allocation on the East African Customs Union while Kitui and Kakamega counties reportedly spent Sh60.56 million and Sh29.3 million for State House functions respectively.

Mr Ferdinand Waititu’s Kiambu County found itself having allocated Sh793 million for free primary education, a national government function.

INVESTIGATION

The governor “also splashed” another Sh180 million on retired presidents Mwai Kibaki and Daniel Moi.

And this was not all. His administration had another Sh58 million to spare for the peace-keeping mission in troubled South Sudan. All these are national government functions.

Other counties fingered included Nyeri, Kirinyaga, Laikipia, Kwale, Nyamira, Garissa and Lamu.

Despite the anomalies, the executives walked to Parliament accompanying their bosses to respond to a bewildered team of senators, who in spite of having overseen the counties alongside ward representatives, were also coming in contact with the bizarre expenditure items for the first time.

This is the narrative that county governments want the Directorate of Criminal Investigations to look into.

If it is true, then Ifmis is more compromised than what Kenyans already know.

THEFT

The system is supposed to lock out unauthorised access and prevent anyone from making changes or adjustments on another entity’s budget.

Governors say the DCI should probe how this system was infiltrated.

Kakamega County boss and the Council of Governors chairman Wycliffe Oparanya says his colleagues read mischief in the saga that has raised queries on the safety of Ifmis, a system that was to bring transparency and close the taps on the theft of public funds.

They are also concerned that their budgets may have been used by tech savvy fraudsters at the National Treasury to hide stolen billions of shillings but who forgot to regularise them in time before the auditor came calling.

Mr Oparanya says the explanation by the Treasury that county officers may have pressed wrong buttons when feeding data into the system does not add up since the executives are not supposed to have access to the national government records.

“If it is true that county officials had access to the national budget, then we have a serious problem,” Mr Oparanya said.

“The DCI should look into this issue. The directorate is an independent entity and it should tell the country if any money has been lost in the process,” the Council of Governors chairman said.

ACCESS

Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru — a former director of Ifmis at the Treasury — told the Saturday Nation that devolved government officials cannot access the system beyond county level.

According to Ms Waiguru, not everyone in a county or national government can access the system, and even those who can do not have equal rights.

“Ifmis rights are given according to one’s responsibilities. County governments cannot access national government expenditure. They cannot even access one another’s expenditure,” Ms Waiguru, whose Kirinyaga County was also caught up in the storm, said.

She added that the only institution that has that level of access is the Ifmis department, “since it can see what is happening at the two levels of government”.

Budgets, like all other reports are pre-designed. The system has a general ledger that acts as a repository or record of all transactions done in Ifmis by any ministry, department or agency.

EDITOR'S NOTE:

The juxtaposition of the main headline ‘Who stole Sh10bn from Treasury’ and a photo of Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru on the front page of the Saturday Nation of May 18, 2019, might create the impression that she had something to do with the loss of that money. Nothing could be further from truth. 

As clearly stated in the second part of the headline and the reporting elsewhere in the paper, Ms Waiguru is among 11 governors demanding that the police investigate whether the Ifmis system was used to cover up the theft of public funds at Treasury.

We apologise to Ms Waiguru for any embarrassment that might have resulted from the unintended insinuation.