The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has ordered the Ministry of Labor through its PS Peter Tum to hand over documents pertaining to the auction of government vehicles citing that some of the vehicles are grossly undervalued in the transactions.
PS Tum had initially informed the committee that the auction prices and reserve prices – the minimum price that the seller is willing to accept for an item- for the said vehicles were determined by the Ministry of Transport when he appeared before the commission to respond to audit queries. PAC however insisted that the are cars are devalued and sold for as little as Ksh30,000 despite being in optimum working condition.
“We want full names and addresses of eventual buyers of these vehicles. We also want the names of individuals who came up with the reserve prices in both your ministry and the State Department for Transport,” PAC chairman Opiyo Wandayi is quoted as saying by the Business Daily.
On his part, Auditor General Robert Ouko, insisted that successfully selling the cars at throw away prices could only be possible with collusion amongst government officers, auctioneering firm and other parties and this has led to the loss of public funds and assets.
The Auditor General continued on to give examples of how a government owned VW Passat in perfect working condition was sold at Ksh. 32,000 despite attracting a bid price of Ksh. 100, 000. He similarly identified a Nissan Patrol vehicle that attracted a bid price of Ksh. 2.1 million only to be auctioned at Ksh. 145,000. The AG similarly revealed that another government owned Nissan Patrol automobile was auctioned for Ksh. 130,000 despite it attracting a Ksh. 1.8 million bid and having a reserve price of Ksh. 100,000.
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 has questioned the Ministry of Labour on the low auction prices of government owned vehicles.){kind=link}