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{
    "id": 1198749,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1198749/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 386,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Faki",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13211,
        "legal_name": "Mohamed Faki Mwinyihaji",
        "slug": "mohamed-faki-mwinyihaji-2"
    },
    "content": "Most of the auditors were under the patronage of the governors. Therefore, they could not to pick the major issues and concerns that led to the mismanagement of funds sent to the counties. Madam Temporary Speaker, there were instances where governors were summoned and they refused to appear in the committees. The governors for Murangá, Kitui, Kakamega and Machakos counties refused to appear before the Committee and none of them was ever arrested by the police. The Senator for Kakamega County has talked about special audits. Special audits were commissioned in the last Senate. However, most of the issues that were brought in were very minor and could not sustain progressive oversight of those counties. This is because the same governors who do the special audits are the ones who do the annual audits in those counties. The Office of the Auditor General (OAG) has eight regional stations. That is where they take the auditors from to go look at the accounts of the counties but that is an exercise in futility. The most important function is to have people do the audits in the specific counties. We did one audit in Mombasa County. We took the Senate Sessional Committee on County Public Accounts and Investments (CPAIC) to the County Government of Mombasa in 2019 and we only did half of what we had set out to do. The Governor sort of disappeared but we made the point that he can be questioned on the use of funds that belong to that county. Madam Temporary Speaker, we are now going to have two Committees. One will be dealing with the accounts and the other one will be dealing with the investments which will make it easy for the two Committees to deal with the issues arising from those counties. However, we should not wait for the AG’s reports. We should be proactive and visit the counties to see what is happening there. If there is a road project that is being done, we will see it on the ground. This is because most of the projects that are factored in by the auditors are phantom projects. In most cases, money is paid but there is nothing on the ground to show that the project has been commissioned by the county government. The other aspect is the conduct of our committees. In the last Committee, the concern was that the county governments would just appear before them for the sake of it and nothing much was being done. I attended a session where my Governor was being grilled over the accounts and I was asked not to ask many questions because time was running out. It was about midday and we had to finish up by 1.00 p.m. Therefore, we could not do much. We should not take that trend because the issues that were being asked concerned the county and the people of Mombasa and we should not have been stopped from asking those serious questions. Madam Temporary Speaker, last year, I brought a Petition to this House on behalf of the residents of Buxton over the demolition of their estate by the County Government. Their houses were being demolished because an investor was rebuilding the estate. The Petition was referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Roads and Transport which was led by the now Governor of Kiambu County."
}