Deputy Auditor-General Humphrey Wanyama speaks during a training
workshop organised by the Kenya Alliance of Resident Associations for
county leaders at the Laico Regency Hotel in Nairobi on September 23,
2015. Millions of shillings are being spent to train parastatal board
members at a coastal resort. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU | NATION MEDIA GROUP
Millions of shillings are being spent to train parastatal board members at a coastal resort.
It
will cost Sh60,000, exclusive of transport and out-of-pocket allowance,
to train every board
member from each of the 216 State corporations on the Mwongozo platform on parastatal reforms.
member from each of the 216 State corporations on the Mwongozo platform on parastatal reforms.
The
training started on September 28 and will end on December 5. The 216
parastatals are divided into 32 of between seven and eight. Each session
lasts three days.
The Mwongozo Platform is a code of governance for government-owned entities.
It
was developed by the Presidential Task Force on Parastatal Reforms and
came up with recommendations for merging parastatals to help cut the
public wage bill.
The task force was set up by
President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2013 and was co-chaired by the president’s
senior constitutional and legal adviser, Mr Abdikadir Mohammed, and
Group Managing Director, Commercial Bank of Africa, Mr Isaac Awuondo.
EXCESSIVE SPENDING
In
a letter on September 16, State Corporations Advisory Committee
Secretary Jane Mugambi told all chief executives of State corporations
to pay to Mombasa Continental Resort for full board accommodation for
three days, conferencing, facilitators and training materials for each
board member. “This excludes transport to and from the venue,” Ms
Mugambi said.
The money is to be paid to the resort’s account at NIC Bank City Centre branch three days before the training.
Assuming
that each State corporation, conservatively, has an average of five
board members, the institutions will each part with Sh300,000 for the
training, excluding the cost of flight to Mombasa and back, as well as
ground transport to and from the venue.
A parastatal
like Tana and Athi Rivers Development Authority, which is among the 216
listed for the training, has 12 board members, while the Kenya Film
Classification Board has eight members of the board of directors.
The
Coffee Development Fund, also listed for the training, has nine board
members. The training schedule also incorporates public universities
council members.
Kenya Airways, the preferred mode of
transport for the government, charges approximately Sh18,000 per person
return flight to Mombasa, translating to Sh90,000 for five board of
directors.
LEGAL REDRESS
This translates to Sh19.4 million on air transport to Mombasa by the time the training ends on December 5.
The parastatals also have to pay each board member an out-of-pocket allowance. Sunday Nation
was also told that some staff of State Corporations Advisory Committee
have travelled to Mombasa, when we called to get a comment.
Critics say the trainings could have been held at the Kenya School of Government, Nairobi, at much reduced cost.
According
to Mr Stephen Mutoro, secretary-general of Consumers Federation of
Kenya, there is no justification why public universities, with better
in-house trainers and facilitators, should be grouped here.
“Nearly
90 per cent of the parastatals are headquartered in Nairobi. Why was
the trainings conducted in Mombasa? If these funds did not exist in the
budgets of States corporations, would there be a supplementary budget to
reimburse the same?" Mr Mutoro asked in a letter to President
Kenyatta’s Chief of Staff and Head of Public Service, Mr Joseph Kinyua.
Cofek
has threatened to seek legal redress on the issue, saying the majority
of the boards of State corporations who were appointed just months ago
have already conducted own induction and been appraised on “Mwongozo”.
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