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{
    "id": 619437,
    "url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/619437/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 240,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ng’ongo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": "those resources to corruption. Because I do not have much time to go into the details of this Report, I want to say that what we witnessed is a case of open theft of public funds. There is no two way about it. I will tell you for a fact that the officers who were charged with the responsibility of managing public funds at the Judiciary, led by the Chief Registrar, were on a mission to loot the resources from public coffers and divert them to unknown use. Why do I say so? Right from the constitution of the tender committee, the Chief Registrar of the Judiciary who is allowed by law and the Constitution to set up the tender committee ensured that the committee was not competent enough and did not follow the laid down procedure in terms of the legal framework and the Public Procurement and Disposal Act 2005. For example, the Directorate of Finance which was acting also as the secretary to the tender committee was represented by junior officers and yet there were senior officers qualified to represent the directorate. The reason being, someone wanted compliant officers to sit in the tender committee and make sure that the tenders were skewed to benefit that individual. By the way, this was not the work of the JSC. This was the responsibility of the Chief Registrar of the Judiciary. That is why sometimes I think that maybe some of my colleagues did not follow through the investigation of this matter. They were wrong when they thought that the Chief Registrar of the Judiciary probably was an innocent officer working in this Department of Government. The Chief Registrar was very clear when she appeared before us. She first said that the Constitution gives her the mandate to manage the Judiciary fund exclusively and she was only answerable to Parliament, Public Procurement Oversight Authority (PPOA) and the National Treasury. She said that she had no any other office to be answerable to including the JSC. So, she was telling us in a nutshell no one else should be asked anything that happened with regard to the accountability of the Judiciary funds. However, when it came to impropriety and financial mismanagement, she turned round and was trying to explain how she was being frustrated, how there was a sub-committee of the JSC that was interfering with her work, but without providing evidence. Hon. Speaker, the tender committee approved expenditure even without budgetary allocation, something that is unheard of in Government ministries. In fact, it is not only budgetary allocation. Even if you do not have Exchequer issues, the financial regulation does not allow the tender committee to proceed with the tender until it ascertains that money has been released by the Treasury for the same. It is laughable that when we were investigating this matter, we realised that the Judiciary did not even have a prequalified list of suppliers. Goods running into millions were being ordered through telephone calls. It is shocking. Someone just sits in the Judiciary, makes telephone calls and asks you to go and do a prefabricated house in Bomet or wherever. That was the order of the day in the Judiciary. You can look for some documents and even the contracts may not be found and yet millions of money was released. Take the case of the Elgon Place where initially, Kshs70 million was spent and up to the time we were investigating this matter, and I believe probably even today, the space has not been utilised. The Kshs70 million was sunk and yet the place is not being used. It is lying there idle because of an improper decision made by some officers. In the tender document, the space that was tendered for was 34 square feet. Finally, an agreement was done for 47 square feet without even going back to the tender. We know very well what the Public Procurement and Disposal Act says about tender variation. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}