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{
    "id": 510433,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/510433/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 238,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Njomo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1784,
        "legal_name": "Jude L. Kangethe Njomo",
        "slug": "jude-l-kangethe-njomo"
    },
    "content": "Thank you hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for this opportunity to contribute to this Motion. There are three parties to this Report, namely the Public Accounts Committee, a committee of this House; the Accounting Officers and the Auditor General. I will first start by commending the Public Accounts Committee for a job well done. They have done what has not been done before. This is not the first time; this is the second bunch of reports that have been tabled by the Public Accounts Committee. On the outset, it clears all the backlog of the audited accounts that had not been done before. I must commend the Committee because they burnt the midnight oil. There were bad words said about the Committee, like being lazy, because people did not understand what was going on. However, finally this job has been done well and the Reports are in the hands of this House. I know the House will find them to be good. The other party is the Accounting Officers, who were called by the Public Accounts Committee. They came to their Committee meetings to defend their accounts. The new Constitution gives very clear timelines which should now be followed for each of the three parties. It is worth noting that the Constitution gives all the Accounting Officers the months of July, August and September to finish up with their books of accounts so that the Auditor General can clear with the Audit during the months of October, November and December before submitting the Report to the Public Accounts Committee, which will have January, February and March to clear with the accounts. Henceforth, I do not think we will have any backlog because the Constitution protects us from creating such backlog. We know that some of these delays and backlog was caused by many Accounting Officers not responding to management letters they were given by the Auditor General. This creates a lot of work for the Public Accounts Committee, which at times does what the Auditor General is supposed to do; to audit. There was a breakdown in communication between the Office of the Auditor General and the Accounting Officers. Measures should be taken so that all the Accounting Officers account for monies within the required time, respond to management letters and act on them. That will make the work of the Public Accounts Committee easier and will take a shorter time. The other issue is the one of IFMIS. Treasury must improve the IFMIS system so that it is able to provide all the parameters that are required for a good audit process. A point in question is that after the end of the government financial year, the IFMIS system switches off for about a month or it is not able to effect all the services for that period. Therefore, the Accounting Officers are not able to get funds from IFMIS and they are not even able to account for the monies they have used through IFMIS. Also it causes panic-buying and panic-procurement towards the end of the year so that the Accounting Officers will not have any surplus funds in their accounts, which they will not be able to use after the IFMIS is unable to provide the services. My advice to the Accounting Officers is to plan well so that they spend all the monies they have within the year to avoid panic-purchasing towards the end of the year. The other party to this Report is the Auditor General. The Auditor General’s work has been expanded greatly because it has to cover all the 47 counties. They have to audit all the Constituencies Development Fund expenditure. This is an enormous amount of work. It would only be fair to ask that the Auditor General be provided with enough staff and budget so that he 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."
}