The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) overpaid salary arrears to teachers amounting to Ksh212,724,467, according to a recent report by the Auditor-General on the National Government for the 2021/2022 Financial Year.
The report, which was released by the Auditor General CPA Nancy Gathungu on February 20, 2023, reveals that 1,807 teachers and 135 Secretariat staff received salary arrears more than once during the period amounting to Ksh197,214,537 and Ksh15,509,930 respectively.
The Auditor-General noted that the move was contrary to Article 201(d) of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 which states that public money shall be used in a prudent and responsible way.
Additionally, 21 teachers and 75 Secretariat staff were paid leave allowance twice amounting to Ksh240,000 and Ksh740,000 respectively; with Ms. Gathungu stating that the payments were made to teachers and the Secretariat staff who were not in the hardship areas.
TSC also failed to deduct and remit Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) amounting to Ksh565,992,813 from a total of 7,069 employees.
The report showed that during the year under review, the Commission did not deduct PAYE due from 3,281 Special Needs staff; 3,784 Non-special Needs staff and 4 Secretariat staff with gross pay amounting to Ksh350,930,993; Ksh214,965,126 and Ksh96,694 respectively.
According to Ms. Gathungu, a review of the Commission’s payroll revealed that employees with Special Needs, as prescribed under Section 11(3) of the Persons with Disabilities Act, 2003 are denoted by codes 2-9 under the Special Needs field in the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Database (IPPD); but the above referenced employees code was zero (0) denoting that they are not people with Special Needs, and had not been exempted from paying income tax by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA).
Regarding the implementation of the donor-funded Secondary Education Quality Improvement Project (SEQIP), the Auditor-General states that the statement of comparative budget and actual amounts reflects the final receipts budget and actual on a comparable basis of Ksh450 million and Ksh272,376,218 respectively resulting in an underfunding of Ksh177, 623,782 (or 39 per cent) of the budget.
Similarly, the Project expended Ksh317,841,547 against an approved budget of Ksh450 million resulting in an under-expenditure of Ksh132, 158,454 (or 29 per cent) of the budget.
“The under-absorption of the approved budget is an indication of the activities not implemented by the project management leading to the non-provision of services to the stakeholders,” CPA Gathungu said.
Another anomaly was noted on the un-surrendered Authority to Incur Expenditure (AIE) Funds where the statement of financial assets reflected a balance of Ksh14,326,719 in respect of other receivables, which was issued to 26 TSC County Directors; out of which an amount of Ksh425, 504 was in respect of the unspent amount of Ksh283,854 and Ksh141,650 for the Commission’s Kisii County office and the Commission Headquarters respectively which had not been surrendered as at June 30, 2022.
The Auditor-General said that this anomaly was contrary to the provisions of Regulation 117 of the Public Finance Management (National Government) Regulations, 2015 which states that where an AIE holder observes that it will not be possible to utilize all the funds allocated for a particular project in a given financial year, the Accounting Officer will then surrender the resources to The National Treasury.
“In the circumstances, the Project Management was in breach of the law due to the failure to surrender that amount as prescribed in law.” The report stated.
By Roy Hezron
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