Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 1526097,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1526097/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 146,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suna East, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Junet Mohamed",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Hon. Speaker, I want to add my voice to what the Majority Leader has raised. This matter of the Public Audit (Amendment) Bill has been sensationalised in the country, to the extent that it was said the Leader of the Majority Party has tabled a Bill in Parliament to remove the Auditor-General from office. I was shocked. I am a Member of this House and I have never seen that type of a Bill. What shocked me more is that the story was carried by a highly reputable media House. What is happening nowadays in the media sphere in our country is shocking. Nowadays you can wake up to a headline like “Stupid man” or “Useless man.” What kind of media reporting is that? Where is the Media Council of Kenya that is supposed to regulate the media? If people are gripped with what the media is doing, where do you go to complain? They have no apologies; they report and just move on. They can write anything today or tomorrow and nothing will happen. The main issue I wanted to bring to the attention of the House is about the Auditor- General. He reports to the National Assembly in terms of expenditure of Government. I have been a Member of the Public Accounts Committee in the last two Parliaments. Auditing of Government expenditure did not start today or yesterday. There is a procedure that is followed whenever auditing is done and the law is very clear on that. I want to bring to the attention of the House that Article 226 of the Constitution read together with the Public Audit Act, PART IV, provides for the procedure of auditing, which requires that the Auditor-General engages the public servants who are in the public offices, audits them and reports to Parliament. Parliament is supposed to verify whether the audit report is correct or not. Until that is done and a report is tabled before the plenary of this House, the issues raised in that audit report are not yet confirmed. Nowadays, when the Auditor-General reports on a matter, before it is verified, it will be all over the country with information of so-and-so having stolen this kind of money or money having been lost and yet the Auditor-General has not been invited to appear before the Public Accounts Committee to confirm if that is what she found. She has not told the public that the matter has not yet been verified by the committee of the House. The committee of the House is the arbiter on that matter. The public servant accused of malpractice and the Auditor-General who is the prosecutor appear before the committee of the House and everyone brings his or her documents before the committee. Unless we have changed our rules and changed our laws on auditing, that is the position as far as I am concerned. Now, any audit report is confirmed before it is brought before the House. That culture will lead to anarchy and that culture will lead to people's names being destroyed without any recourse. Civil servants are given an opportunity to explain what the Auditor-General has reported because they might have been delayed in submission of documents, misinformation and misreporting. All that needs to be looked at. But if the Auditor- General's word is final, then why report to Parliament? Why can the Auditor-General not do the report and publish it and that should be the end of the story. That is not what the law says. We must be people who are guided by the Constitution and the law. Secondly, Kenyans nowadays ask themselves whether the independent offices they gave themselves through the new Constitution are really serving them. Let us look at the 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."
}