In recent updates, Omtatah and Otuoma at loggerheads over the county finances. Omtatah sent Otuoma a letter seeking the knowledge of County finances in full.
Okiya Omatatah is the senator of Busia County and it is within his rights to seek County financial. Paul Otuoma doesn’t see the need to submit the county’s finances and so the disagreement.
Business County has been seen to have pending bills, unsettled finance obligations, and no payment of goods and services. While this is going on, funds have been disbursed to the County for its running.
Omtatah wrote a letter to the Busia governor seeking to know the details of County finances. From County enacted funds management, own revenue collected, bills (pending and paid), bank balances, and all information regarding county finance.
He goes ahead to ask for the files and their supporting documents within 21 days starting with the letter delivery date. Omtatah does this according to section 9 of the Access to information act no 31 of 2016. As the senator of the county, he has been given the mandate to oversee funds allocation to devolved units and their expenditure.
In addition to the county finances, the senator also seeks to know the number of people employed by the government. This includes permanent workers, contractual staff, and casual workers. He wants to know how many people are on the county’s payroll and how many of them have been paid or not.
All these wrangles come after complaints against the county were filed. The county allegedly employed casual workers in the health department for a year and laid them off without any payment. There’s also a record of the county receiving over Ksh 1.7 billion on pending bills on June 30, 2022.
” In any case, the county has paid any pending bill since you assumed office, please, disclose the amounts, particulars of the services and or goods procured, identities of beneficiaries, and rationale for prioritizing these over those that remain unpaid,” he added in the letter.
The search for the county finances by the senator has raised eyebrows among the business governor.
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