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{
    "id": 550111,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/550111/?format=api",
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    "content": "plus the national Government making a total of 48 governments and various departments and parastatals. This Bill must move further to create 47 units dedicated to the service of the people of Kenya. Currently, we are told that we are served in regions. In West Pokot, we are served by officers stationed in Eldoret who cover about six or seven counties. That is not good service to the people of Kenya because services should be taken closer to the people. No wonder the malpractices we keep on hearing about in counties are very glaring. This is because the Auditor-General’s officers are not spread in counties. We recently invited the Auditor-General to attend our meeting of the Committee of Finance, Commerce and Budget. He confessed that he has a big challenge of staff that are trained and educated as indicated here. We hope that this Bill, once enacted into law, will assist that office to be strengthened. Clause 5 talks about who should be recruited to the position of Auditor-General. However, I am interested and attracted to look at Clause 5(i)(b) which indicates that the Auditor-General holds respective qualifications for the office specified in Article 229 of the Constitution which says; “To be qualified to be the Auditor-General, a person shall have extensive knowledge of public finance or at least ten years experience in auditing or public finance management.” This Bill should not only mention that but also highlight and bring out what is in the Constitution clearly. The Bill suggests that the person should hold a degree in finance but does not state how many years of experience that person should have. In the current age, everybody is in school. We have parallel programmes where after 5.00 p.m everybody walks into some buildings which are offering degrees. Why are we saying that the Auditor-General should have one degree? We should be talking about a second degree or a PhD or with some specialized training. You can walk into any university and pick a degree. We must change this clause to say that on top of a degree in finance, which was mandatory those days, somebody should have something else. We should fine tune this so that we get the results required. I want to see that highlighted here so that people do not go looking for the Constitution whenever they read the Bill. In Clause 5(e), the Bill says that this person should be a practicing member of good standing of a professional body of accounts which is recognised by law. In Clause 7(1)(b), it says that this person will undertake audit activities in state organs, public entities to confirm whether or not public money has been applied lawfully and in an effective way. What do we do with money that is already past tense? For the past two years, every Senator has sat here to scrutinize and fight for their counties respectively. Remember, at the beginning of 2013/2014, we sent some money which was minimum to counties. Today, every county has an allocation. Some allocations have risen to over Kshs1 billion, two years later. We hope that some of the issues of misappropriation that have been highlighted will be audited. I do not know who we can trust now that this Bill has not yet become an Act. As I mentioned, the whole of Nyanza, five or six counties, is being audited by some people stationed in Kisumu and this is also happening in our place. Peculiar behavior has come up which we have mentioned to the Auditor-General today to the extent that we hear that 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."
}