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{
    "id": 551069,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/551069/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 255,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "some auditors in some regional stations in courts are being “compromised.” What do we do with the reports they have done when we know that there are claims to the extent that they have been compromised? This may require that as we move on and as the office is established fully, even if we backdate audits to very many years back for the sake of the people of Kenya, that will be great. Further additional powers have been cited in Clause 8(b). The Auditor-General has the powers to recruit and promote competent staff to perform the functions of that office. This means that the current scenario we see where incomplete work obtains will be a thing of the past. How will we pay? I hope that additional documents will be provided to show the payment levels and salaries for the staff. You cannot pay employees of the Auditor-General the same rate we pay the rest. I hope that the Bill will propose that we pay them better than the others. This will give us a guarantee that the people we have sent there are capable. The Bill also proposes that he will establish committees as necessary including executive committees in counties and elsewhere which will introduce checks and balances. I support this. Madam Temporary Speaker, Clause 9(1)(b) of the Bill also talks about the Auditor-General or any other authorized officer going to obtain professional assistance, consultancy or advice from any other body. This is important because like in the case of Narok County, when there was a petition, there was a time when there was a complete shortage of staff which required that the Auditor-General was supposed to go and look for consultancy outside. This provision is necessary so that when there is an acute need and a crisis arises that requires to be solved, then there must be room for the officer in charge to engage consultants that have been registered and have high standing in the field of audit. Clause 10 says that the Auditor-General shall not be subject to direction or control of any other person. This independence is key so that he is not at the whim of anybody or somebody who may want to alter and mess up with things. It is important that some of these offices be given their due independence, so that they can be relied on in the discharge of their duties. In the recruitment of some of their key officers, they must always be subjected to the public for people to see how they have been recruited. Madam Temporary, Speaker, Clause 15 talks about the Senior Deputy Auditor- General who shall be the accounting officer in the Office of the Auditor-General. I thought that the Auditor-General is the boss. Why are we then saying that there is another one who is accounting yet he is answerable to him? These are some of the things that we have to look at critically at the Committee stage in order to remove ambiguity and not to undermine the officer in charge at the Office of the Auditor-General. Moving ahead, in the recruitment of the Auditor-General, it says that there may be need to establish an Audit Advisory Board. I agree with that but it also says in Clause 25(1), that the Board must meet at least four times in a year and it goes further to name who is supposed to sit on that board. This is key because some boards have turned to be permanent and pensionable. They meet nearly every week in order to attract and get money. If you do the total calculation of the amount of money that they are paid in the name of sitting allowance, it even supersedes the payment given to a person employed permanently including the Auditor-General himself. 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."
}