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{
    "id": 553405,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/553405/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 232,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Treasury because the Treasury has bird’s eye view of the entire micro-economic framework of the country. The next issue was that of the Audit Advisory Board. This Bill creates an Audit Advisory Board which is a new thing. I am glad that in Clause 26 the Senate had clarified the extent to which the Advisory Board is only and purely advisory. Section 10 of the same Act states clearly that the AG shall be independent and shall not be directed by anybody, office or any authority. So, you find that the Audit Advisory Board must be purely advisory. However, the paradox was that this purely Advisory Board which was advising on issues of recruitment, budget estimates and of the functioning of the AG was being chaired by the AG himself and we asked: How can you chair a Board that is advising you? The difference we made was that this is not an executive board. If it was, for instance the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC) is chaired by the Speaker. The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) is chaired by the Chief Justice because they perform executive functions within those institutions but these being purely advisory, we felt that it will not make sense for the AG to chair it. We put clearly and we agreed that the AG can sit there or a person nominated by him or her. Also if you look at Clause 24 (4), it talks about members of the Auditors Advisory Board electing a Chairperson from amongst themselves and that person whom they elect to be the chair of the Audit Advisory Board cannot be the AG. I can see Hon. (Eng.) Gumbo waving his hand frantically. This is not like the JSC or the PSC. It is just advisory. If for example they start giving advice that is not palatable to the AG and he is chairing it, he will stop calling the meetings. We want somebody else to be calling the meetings and giving the advice but the AG shall sit in. On Section 32, Hon. Langat has explained very clearly. We said that internal audit of the State organs audit reports, it is not mandatory for them to be forwarded to the AG. However, he has unhindered and unfettered access to all of these reports. The Senate had sought to make it mandatory for these State organs to forward those internal audit reports and that would not be necessary. Finally, on auditing of national security organs, in principle we all agreed that all national security organs must be audited to the full extent but this auditing of national security organs must be done in a very guided way. The first thing we want to reiterate was that at the inception, and which is the practice in auditing, there must be an inception meeting and at the highest level of both organs. That is the highest levels in the AG’s office and in the relevant security organ. That meeting agreed on areas which may touch on national security but, not to reduce the scope, but to make sure that they agree on the appropriate audit approach that will ensure confidentiality of information. So, we want to make it clear because we have seen comments all over the place that Parliament was trying to make sure that national security organs are not audited. We are saying that they must be audited, but it must be done within a certain framework where confidentiality is maintained when it comes to audit approach. Hon. Speaker, we also said that all the staff of the Auditor-General, who are carrying out an audit under this section, need to be vetted by the authorized Government vetting agencies. To make it clear, the authorized vetting is not necessarily that one which is being audited. But the authorized vetting agency would probably be the National Intelligence Service (NIS) or the CID as the case may be. But this auditing will be done in a periodic time. With those many remarks, I second."
}