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{
    "id": 549843,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/549843/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 374,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "in 2010. For all those years, the story was the same. They came out with reports about what had already happened; for example, Kenren, Goldenberg and so on. They were voluminous reports which were debated by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) year in, year out. Indeed, if you take stock to find out what happened, you will find that we only raise temperatures in the country. We only screamed after hearing from the Auditor-General. After that, nothing happened, except that the Auditor- General continued to write more reports. What I like about this Bill is that we are now getting out of the era of post-mortem reports and getting into the era of pre-mortem reports by the Auditor-General. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I will look at the Constitutional provisions which now create the office of the Auditor-General. It says that he will be nominated by the President with the approval of the National Assembly. He should have extensive knowledge of public finance and at least ten years experience in auditing and public finance management. Therefore, the time when you could appoint your relatives into this big office is gone. The focus is now on qualifications. If you look at Clause 229(4), the range of organizations that the Auditor-General is supposed to audit is very broad. He audits national and county governments, all funds and authorities of the national and county governments, all the courts, all commissions and independent offices established by the Constitution, the National Assembly, the Senate, county assemblies, political parties funded from public funds and so on. Therefore, CORD and Jubilee are supposed to be audited by the Auditor-General. He also audits public debt and accounts of any other entity that legislation requires the Auditor- General to audit. The Audit-General may audit and report on the accounts of any entity that is funded from public funds. So, if we establish a committee tomorrow, so long as it is funded by the public, the Auditor-General has mandate. This is a very broad mandate. What we are saying is that in view of the expanded mandate of the office of the Auditor-General, time has come for us to expand the resources that we allocate to that office. As of now, the Senate has not received even a single report from any county government from the Auditor-General. Those reports should be tabled in Parliament, which includes the Senate and also the county assemblies. I wonder whether the office of the Auditor-General as constituted has the capacity or human resources to audit all the 47 county assemblies and other funds established by those entities. If there should be a bigger office in the Government, it should be the office of the Auditor-General. You have heard them cry that their budget has been slashed by a Committee of the National Assembly. How can we talk about independence of the office of Auditor-General if they are not financially independent? We can continue reading the Constitution; saying that they will not act under the authority or direction of any person, but you and I, know that there are issues of psychological independence. If somebody has hunger in his stomach, he will be pushed into the direction of food. Some of the auditing staff in the counties will threaten other officers saying we shall meet in the evening to discuss the audit queries arising in the department. This is in the hope that they will eat properly, get two bottle of beer or something like that. If we are ready to ensure independence of this office, maybe, we should think of treating them the way we treat the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) staff, where we even 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."
}