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{
    "id": 1565880,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1565880/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 295,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "We should ask ourselves in that sentence, what is approved by the National Assembly? Is it the audit report or the revenues that are approved by the National Assembly? If you go to Article 229(7) and (8), where the report is considered, sub-article (7) says, audit reports shall be submitted to Parliament or the relevant County Assembly. Sub-article (8) says, within three months after receiving an audit report, Parliament or County Assembly shall debate and consider the report and take appropriate action. There is no provision in that Article where the National Assembly or this House or County Assemblies approve audit reports. Audit reports are complete and final. If you want to challenge them, you can only challenge them in court. An Auditor-General is an independent office and their reports cannot be approved by this House. The interpretation of Article 203(3) means that the National Assembly approving audit reports is erroneous. This has denied county governments a lot of revenue, because we are now using a revenue of Kshs1 trillion when the last budget was about Kshs3 trillion. We should be talking of 15 per cent of Kshs3 trillion, not of Kshs1 trillion. Article 203(3), should be understood that the approval by the National Assembly refers to the revenue, not the audit. Thus, for the revenues that are approved by the National Assembly, revenues are introduced in Article 221, because in Article 220, we are told that budgets of national Government and county governments shall disclose revenue estimates of revenue and estimates of expenditure for those governments. Those are then considered under Article 221, and that is why they are approved. Basically, what Article 203 is telling us is that in an audit of the annual budget, we should implement the budget as has been audited. Since, once the revenues are approved, they are put into the Appropriation Act as the budget and passed by the House. There is nowhere else where the National Assembly considers revenues. Consequently, to say that the National Assembly approves the Report of the Auditor-General is erroneous. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, when you go to Article 229, you find that the National Assembly, the Senate and the County Assembly is given three months, within which not to approve, but to debate, consider and take appropriate action on an audit report. Fundamentally, we are told that we look at the report and within three months, make sure that there is accountability and those who have been adversely mentioned are to be held accountable. We urge departments of the national Government to improve on their accounting systems. It does not in any way tell us that we should be approving reports of the Auditor- General. Even if we were to argue that the National Assembly is supposed to approve reports of the Auditor-General before we use them as a basis for calculating the 15 per cent that should go to the county governments, in Article 229, there is a clear timeline of three months. The Auditor-General is given six months from 1st of July to audit books of the Government and present the report to us by 31st of December. After that, we have three months as Parliament to consider the report and take action on it. Anything outside three months that are given in the Constitution is null and void. The National Assembly cannot claim that it has not looked at the reports. That is sleeping on its job. That was for"
}