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{
    "id": 551046,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/551046/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 232,
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    "content": "the national office that normally advises the Auditor-General but my problem with it is the membership. If the reason they are putting the Attorney-General there is because they want him to give legal opinion to the Auditor-General, he is the wrong person. This is because the Office of the Attorney General is also subject to audit. So, if you make him a member of this board, he is going to protect his accounts or negotiate on how his accounts are going to be audited. Therefore, the Attorney-General should not be there. Secondly, the chairperson of the Public Service Commission should equally and similarly not be there, because the Commission will be audited by the Auditor-General. As the practice is, Parliament should be represented on this board. The practice today and over the years is that the Chairman of the Public Account Committee (PAC) in the National Assembly was sitting in this Committee; I sat in this Committee for five years. I propose that in the amendment, we include here that after deleting Attorney-General (AG), we replace him with the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee in the National Assembly and after deleting the Chairman of the Public Service Commission (PSC), and we replace him by the Chairman of the County Public Accounts and Investment Committee (CPAIC). I would like to draw the attention of the mover to Clause 35 and to give him compliments because it is good and it is emphasizing the issue of performance audits. What has been causing us hell over the last 50 years is that we have been receiving financial audits from the office of the Auditor-General. The mischief being that all the Auditor-General is concerned about is to ensure that provisions within the budget estimates are the ones which are reported on paper to have been implemented. He has not been taking too much interest in going on the ground and seeing value for money. This clause is going to ensure that the when somebody says that he has build a cattle dip, the Auditor-General should go and confirm that indeed there is a cattle dip that is functional and the materials that were used are equal to the claim as to how much money was made available to these people. I want to draw further attention of the Mover to Clause 39 to which Sen. Orengo and Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr., have spoken about; the issue of the auditing of national security organs. Members, we must delete this one. The mega scandal that you heard about called Anglo Leasing was about security contracts. So, had the Auditor-General been given an opportunity to pursue this, probably, we would have been wiser. The Kshs2.5 billion that led to the disbandment of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chaired by hon. Ababu Namwamba in the National Assembly was about security. Therefore, security must be opened and be audited just like any other Government expenditure. Finally, I would like to draw the attention of the House to Article 51 which speaks to the implementation of reports by accounting officers. Clause 51(2) provides that failure to comply with provisions of subsection (1), the accounting officer shall be punished. That is the route to go because what PACs have been doing for the last 50 years plus, is to make recommendations which go on the shelves and continue gathering dust but now that we are now putting this------"
}