Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 1058111,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1058111/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 314,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13162,
        "legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
        "slug": "moses-otieno-kajwang"
    },
    "content": "I want to urge as we have proposed before, that let us adopt our Standing Orders to ensure that there is continuity in the operations of Sessional Committees until a new a Committee is put in place. This is because there is nobody who will come from outside this House to form part of those Committees. All the Members who can potentially be Members of those Sessional Committees are already here. What is required is quick decisions. If there is a problem in making decisions, let us just ensure that the Sessional Committee as constituted in the last Session by some special resolutions continues to work until the leadership of the House decides on the change of their leadership. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the Report that we are discussing today was part of the Fiduciary Risk Report that was adopted by the House. If you do recall, we brought the Fiduciary Risk Report so that we could see the forest. The Auditor-General submits a lot of reports to the House. Every year, the Auditor-General brings 47 reports for county executives, 47 for county assemblies, 47 for car loan and mortgage funds and 47 for any other additional fund that might have been established in the county. Every year, on average, the Auditor-General will bring reports that are over 200 pages. This is a 67 Members House. Sometimes it is impossible for the Senate to consider all those reports on an annual basis. It is different at county assemblies. This is because a county assembly will receive at a minimum four reports in a year. One for the executive and one for the assembly and two for the special funds that they have established. As a result, it was important to aggregate the findings of the Auditor-General and come up with a Fiduciary Risk Report. That, we did. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the Fiduciary Risk Report indicated that in the first three years of devolution, the Auditor-General had queried expenditure close to Kshs298 billion. If you take that as a percentage of the funds that have been allocated to counties, that would tell you that in those first three years, one-third of it, could not be properly accounted for. That is a disaster if, indeed, it is to be established to be true. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the amount that was queried if you put in contest was enough to build nine Thika Road Highways. With Kshs298 billion, you can do a lot. In fact, the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) told us if that money was invested properly in the productive sectors of the economy, it could lead to at least 5 per cent growth of the economy. That is kind of the potential losses we have, out these accountability queries. It happened that some of the issues that the Auditor-General had flagged could have been satisfied with documentation. It is wrong for governors to refuse to give documents to the Auditor-General and then come to the Senate with truckload of documents. The intention is to confuse, perplex and put the Senate in a situation where it just clear the audit queries. I want to emphasize that the place for primary oversight still remains the county assemblies. We must ensure that our laws are tailored in such a way that even the governor is accountable to the people residing in the county through the county assembly. There has been some jurisprudence, which has made the governor too big to appear before county assemblies. In fact, in the recent past, governors only appear before county assemblies when they have an impeachment hanging over their necks. It should be normal or we should normalize that a governor should appear before the county assembly. This business of hiding behind County Executive Committee (CEC) Members, The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}