Audit Report On TSC Raises Concern Over Sh 385 million Salary Overpayment
According to the report, the the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) spent over Sh 385 million salary overpayment raising concerns about the integrity of its multibillion-shilling payroll.
The report indicates the teachers service commission overpaid 32 teachers by Sh33 million which was in addition to the Sh 352,853,152 in excess payouts discovered during a review of the commission’s books of accounts.
The overpayment to teachers and staff was raised after the commission failed to explain the source of the payments and how they accumulated to hundreds of millions of dollars.
“The origin and the build-up of the salary overpayments have not been explained,” Auditor General Nancy Gathungu said in a report on the TSC’s books of accounts.
For the review of the fiscal year ending June 202, Gathungu stated that it was uncertain whether the Nancy Macharia-led institution would recover the funds.
“The repayment period for the recovery of the outstanding amounts is beyond the retirement age of the respective teachers,” the auditor said in respect of the 32 teachers.
According to Gathungu the recoverability of the Sh 385 million salary overpayment balance is doubtful.
The auditor in TSC review revealed that the commission lacks proper internal controls to prevent losses from such payments.
“The existence of an effective internal control to safeguard loss of public resources could be confirmed,” she explained.
Concerns have been raised about the porousness of payrolls and lists for entities whose interventions involve the disbursement of cash.
TSC being one of the state agencies with large budgets of up to Sh296 billion for the current fiscal year has been put on spot for the loses of billions of money in one budgetary year.
Several audits have identified irregularities in the disbursement of cash in the education sector, ranging from school fee subsidies to capitation fees for technical colleges.
The Education ministry’s Vocational and Technical Training department may have lost more than Sh 6.2 billion in the previous fiscal year due to inflated student numbers and unsupported college disbursements.
The audit revealed that Sh 2.5 billion was disbursed during the Covid-19 lockdown when students were not in class.
TSC has also been questioned about cash disbursements to counties after failing to provide a breakdown of the amounts owed by each county for audit review.
Gathungu has also raised concerns about the non-remittance of over Sh 2.2 billion in Pay as You Earn tax from 5,412 commission staff and 25 secretariat staff.
The audit revealed that the deductions were not made on the basis that the employees were disabled.
Gathungu, on the other hand, claimed that a review of the payroll revealed that employees with special needs had special codes 2-9, while those paid had code 0.
The auditor stated that this indicated that they were not people with special needs and that the Kenya Revenue Authority had not exempted them from paying income tax.
The overpayment to teachers and staff was raised after the commission failed to explain the source of the payments and how they accumulated to hundreds of millions of dollars.
