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{
    "id": 396499,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/396499/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 232,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "key people in this. Was it the Transition Authority (TA) that failed to provide the officers necessary to work and prepare the budgets? If yes, we need to deal with them fairly and squarely. Was it the Treasury that did not second officers who are conversant with IFMIS? What is IFMIS? I was an Accounting Officer for five years and I know that this is a complicated system that you cannot experiment on people who have not used it. The Treasury should have sent officers but not to inherit or upgrade the former county council accountants to be in charge of such huge amounts of money. You will also make an interesting observation on page 12, paragraph ix; that the investigating team that was sent by the Office of the Controller of Budget established that the approved budget was not published nor publicized as required by the law. This is contrary to Section 125 of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) 2012. These revelations are so massive that I wonder whether we have sent any money to Turkana. How is the Turkana County Government operating if the budget was not approved or put in the Kenya Gazette? If it was not publicized as it is required by law, what does that mean? That means that there are people operating in that county who do not follow the law. There could also be people who do not know what they were supposed to do and yet they are in charge of our finances. I note with concern that governors are political appointees. They have never been in charge of parastatals or departments and, therefore, they do not know these processes and procedures. The Transition Authority is now strictly on the map, because it should not have allowed this to proceed without bringing it to the attention of the governor and county government. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, our role in the Senate, as stated clearly in Article 96 (1) of the Constitution, is to represent the counties and serve to protect the interests of the counties and their governments. I do not know what type of role or permission we need for the Senate to rein in and stand so firmly to see to it that things run in our counties. For example, there is a Bill that is going round and I have already seen governors running around, just because they heard of a proposal to have county development boards. Every organization has a board. A school has a board of governors, a university has a council and parastatals have boards of directors. Therefore, by virtue of our role of representing the counties, it means that the Senate has a footing in the counties anytime, anywhere, to see that their operations are so directed and supervised by the governors on the ground. We also serve to protect, so that we do not come here on hearsay. If these boards or such a forum, for example, were in place, Sen. Munyes, who is not here, already would have detected this in advance and raised the red flag, including being the mediator between the county assembly and the governor, because I am told in this Report that they do not see eye to eye. I do not know whether they are now facing or staring at one another. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, it is true that we must play our role to safeguard this. As we look for funds from the national Government, we need to know that this money that has gone to the ground has gone to capable hands. We trust the people who were elected, but the implementation should involve everybody, so that we know what is taking place. We should not have cases, for example, where some Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) projects overlap with those identified by the county. If there was a board or forum, those projects would have been aligned, so that no repetition The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}