The Office of the Controller of Budget (CoB) has owned up to making a mistake in its latest financial report, which wrongly claimed that Homa Bay County was operating hundreds of bank accounts.
In a report covering how counties spent their budgets for the 2024/25 financial year, the CoB stated that Homa Bay County, led by Governor Gladys Wanga, had a total of 584 bank accounts in commercial banks.
But Homa Bay County quickly responded with a letter dated September 18, saying the figure was incorrect.
They explained that the report mistakenly included 284 community health units known as Level 1 units that don’t even have bank accounts.
After reviewing the complaint, Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o admitted the error. In a letter to the county’s Finance Executive, she apologized and promised that the mistake would be fixed in the next version of the report.
“We recognize that there was a mistake. The number of bank accounts was wrongly reported as 558 instead of 274. We sincerely regret the error and will correct it as soon as possible,” Nyakang’o said.
She added that the corrected numbers will appear in the revised edition of the County Budget Implementation Review Report (CGBIRR) for 2024/25.
According to the updated figures, Homa Bay County currently runs 272 bank accounts, including:
207 accounts for smaller health facilities (Level 2 and 3),
24 accounts for larger hospitals (Level 4 and 5),
35 accounts for vocational training centers,
5 special accounts for things like emergency funds, bursaries, and liquor licensing,
3 other accounts, including those used for collecting local revenue and paying salaries.
The original report also listed other counties with large numbers of bank accounts:
Kitui County – 350 accounts
Bungoma and Nakuru – over 300 accounts each
Embu, Machakos, Kwale, and Baringo – over 200 accounts each
On the other hand, some counties had far fewer accounts:
Nandi County – 10 accounts
Kisii – 14 accounts
Tharaka Nithi – 16 accounts
Siaya – 15 accounts
Murang’a – 20 accounts
The CoB has warned counties that having too many commercial bank accounts can increase the risk of misusing or losing public money.
They’ve called on county governments to reduce the number of accounts and improve financial transparency.
