OVER K30M FOR CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT MISAPPLIED

ABOUT K34, 593,167 meant for curriculum and materials development at the Ministry of General Education was applied to other activities not related to the purpose for which funds were approved, without authority from the treasury, the Auditor General’s report for the financial year ended 2018 has revealed.

The funds were instead diverted to activities such as air tickets, subsistence allowances, decentralisation of e-payslips and payment of settling in allowances, among others, not related to the purpose for which the funds were appropriated, contrary to the Appropriation Act of 2017.

The report revealed that the money was channeled for secondary school Infrastructure development, early childhood education provision, but that this had resulted in planned and funded activities not being fully implemented.

The report also indicated that despite the ministry having maintained bank accounts designated for specific activities under different programmes and projects, during the period under review, it was observed that payments were not restricted to specific designated programmes and project bank accounts thereby defeating the purpose of maintaining separate bank accounts.

According to the report, there were questionable borrowings and reimbursement of funds totaling to K2, 281, 639 to the National Implementation Framework (NIF) and keeping girls in school (KGS) accounts, but no documentation was availed.

The report indicated that as at September 20, 2019, no documentation such as authority for the borrowings, payment vouchers, budgets, retirement details, activity reports, receipt and disposal details were availed for audit thereby making the transactions questionable.

And the report has also disclosed that a review of the Information Technology and Communication (ICT) had no ICT policy in place to guide the operations of ICT packages for the Ministry of Education to derive maximum