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{
    "id": 606678,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/606678/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 148,
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    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "The Members of the National Assembly suggested that instead of asking the members to select a chairman, would it not be more appropriate for the President, when he is appointing the members to also appoint the chairman rather than leave that to the members. The reason is that when you look at the Constitution, it provides that the President shall nominate a person to the office and then the person is approved by the National Assembly. We thought that that makes sense. If the Constitution empowers the President to nominate, then there is no difficulty in the President appointing a chairman and six members, because that then is better. That is the only amendment we have made. It will now read as follows:- “That the President shall within fourteen days of the expiry of the period prescribed under Section 2 constitute a selection panel comprising a chairperson and one representative”. The rest of it remains the same. We removed the Office of the President. We said that there is no need to have someone from the Office of the President. We agreed that we should have the chairman and then the others from the Ministry of Finance, the Attorney- General’s office, the Public Service, ICSPAK, Association of Professional Societies of East Africa and the Law Society of Kenya. Then the other amendment which we looked at is No.19 on page 10. This is on the Budget. In the Bill, we had suggested that when the Auditor-General prepares his budget, instead of sending it to Treasury and then Treasury will review it, and after his review it goes to Parliament, in Senate, we said that that review is actually interfering with the functional independence of the Auditor-General. We suggested to delete that review and agreed that he simply forwards it to the Treasury and Treasury then forwards as it is to Parliament. That is the practice worldwide; it is Parliament that determines the budget for the Auditor-General. It does not subject him to a process where Treasury or the Ministry of Finance will have to determine and he has to negotiate with them. They did not want that review. Mr. Speaker, Sir, we discussed and on Clause 19 (2) we retained our amendment earlier of removing the word “review” but added that they can send it with their comments. Since the Treasury looks at sector ceilings and so forth, they can just forward with their comments but they do not touch the budget as submitted by Auditor-General. That is the way it should come to the National Assembly. It will read as follows:- “The budget estimates for revenue and expenditure referred to shall be submitted to the Cabinet Secretary responsible for finance for submission to the National Assembly with the Cabinet Secretary’s comments”. The National Assembly shall then allocate adequate funds. We were satisfied with that mediated version. Then Clause 24 on the Audit Advisory Board; the first amendment we made on that is on Item 1 (a) – There is established an incorporated board to be known as the Audit Advisory Board which shall comprise of (a) Auditor-General”. We said that it should be the Auditor-General or a person nominated by him or her so that if he is not available, there must be someone from his office who should be able to attend that meeting. The rest of the members – the Attorney-General and so forth - are as listed Mr. Speaker, Sir, when you come to sub-section 3, it reads:- 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."
}