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{
    "id": 510382,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/510382/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 187,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. J.K. Bett",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1765,
        "legal_name": "James Kimaru Bett",
        "slug": "james-kimaru-bett"
    },
    "content": "Committee Members for their commitment, resilience and consistency in looking at the Appropriations Accounts for the past three years. Members have even denied themselves recess periods to take time and look at these accounts. I would like to say that we were able to do these accounts guided by the constitutional principles of public finance, other legislative principles like the Public Procurement and Disposal Act and we executed our role effectively, objectively and in accordance with the Standing Orders. I would like to say that it was not easy. It was not a walk in the park. We had a raft of challenges when we were trying to do this work, considering that this was a newly constituted Committee. Most of the Members were new and the huge backlog was, in itself, a big problem. The other problem was the preparedness of the Accounting Officers. Many Accounting Officers were ill prepared to present the responses for the audit queries. Certain Accounting Officers, looking at their annexure and appendices, would refer you to say Appendix 10, but when you refer to Appendix 10, it talks of a totally different thing, separate from the question that is being asked. This, in itself, delayed the process of looking at this. The other biggest challenge that we realized was the capacity of the external auditor’s office. They have a limitation in terms of auditors to audit the Government Ministries and departments. This one gives us a bigger worry as we are supposed now to audit the 47 counties. As we table the three audited accounts for the last three years and raise the threshold for division of revenue between the counties and national Government, this raises the bigger question as to whether the funds that will be devolved to the counties will be well taken care of. That is because, when you look at the Public Accounts Committees of the counties, they have no capacity and they may not be in a position even to play oversight role. I think this is a question that we really need to look at because we may subject the huge funding that we devolve to the counties to a lot of risk and misuse as we intend to spur economic development. I want to touch on other major highlights like the CDF. I would like to say that in the 2012/2013 Financial Year, if you looked at the audit queries that emanated from CDF, they were so huge. However, I want to say that the audit office was unable to look at the serious issues on this. The small problems that we faced were due to the fact that there were no expenditure returns. People did not take time to go and get the expenditure returns. That is why they said that CDF was not well audited. I would like to say that even as we deliberated in our committees, we realized that if there is one single fund that has spurred economic development in this country, it is CDF. When you walk around this country, almost every classroom, cattle dip and laboratory is from CDF. I want to take this opportunity on the Floor of this House to commend Members of this Parliament for being able to utilize the CDF in the most prudent manner that has spurred economic development in this country. Even as we argue as to whether or not the CDF should remain, I want to use this platform to say that the CDF should be doubled so that, instead, of being 2.5 per cent of the GDP, it should be increased to 5 or 10 per cent because of what it has done. The other highlight that came to our attention is the component of pending bills. We realized that pending bills continue to be the most dominant and persistent audit query across all the three financial years. We realized that the major cause of pending bills was delayed exchequer. Ministries and departments continue to commit the Government by way of Local Purchase Orders (LPOs) or Local Supply Orders (LSOs) and, at the end of the financial year, exchequers are not released from Treasury. So, they spill over to the next financial year as pending bills. Funds for the subsequent financial year are used to settle the pending bills. We The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}