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{
    "id": 683479,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/683479/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 179,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Mulu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1955,
        "legal_name": "Benson Makali Mulu",
        "slug": "benson-makali-mulu"
    },
    "content": "that they have been allocated before more money is allocated to them. Since Parliament is working hard to assist the MDAs, it is important that these audit reports are presented on time so that the House approves them. That way, we will be assisting this country. Hon. Speaker, the whole essence of the audit is basically to provide for what we call “value for money”. However, these days, people are also talking about social audit. This is a situation where we would like Kenyans wherever they are--- Any time we say that we have, for example, a Kshs2.2 trillion Budget the big question is: Are Kenyans, wherever they are feeling the effects of such a huge Budget? It could as well be that we say that we are developing, as a country, and yet the development is skewed to a level that only few Kenyans can associate themselves with the huge Budget. That is the question I ask myself every time I read these reports. The reports that come before us do not bring out the element of fair distribution of benefits to Kenyans wherever they are. The other important thing I picked from Hon. (Eng.) Gumbo’s remarks is the issue of Accounting Officers. I always ask myself whether Accounting Officers know why they are called so. Yesterday, he revealed that when Accounting Officers are asked hard questions by the Members of the PAC, they resort to asking their departmental heads the same technical questions. When you are an Accounting Officer, it is expected that you should be on top of things. In a situation where you have an Accounting Officer relying too much on his or her departmental heads, then there is a problem. It actually means that it is the departmental heads who are driving the ministries and not the Accounting Officers. I do not know if this is as a result of incompetence on the part of the Accounting Officer or could it be as a result of laxity where they are competent, but they do not have time to meet the expectations of their office? This House needs to start putting these Accounting Officers to task and tell them: “You are the Accounting Officers and so you must be on top of things. You must be able to answer all our questions.” If they cannot do that then there is no other option other than paving the way so that other competent persons take over. There is one good thing that we must appreciate in this Report. The Government could not account for Kshs300 billion. The money was either misappropriated or misdirected. Hon. (Eng.) Gumbo indicated that initially it was about Kshs66 billion but after interacting with the Accounting Officers, it was determined that what was not clearly accounted for is about Kshs24 billion. This means that we are on the right track in ensuring that the public gets value for money. Even as we outline the challenges that Accounting Officers face, we also need to appreciate them and say that they are on the right track. We need to reduce the allocations considering the monies that are not properly accounted for. We should push this to a level where we can say, “The amount of money that is unaccounted for is almost zero.” We should not be talking about billions of shillings being misappropriated or misdirected. I will be a happy Kenyan if the figure reduces to, say, Kshs1 million or Kshs500,000. I have said it many times in this House and I would like to repeat it, there is no good reason we should see in these reports that imprest was not accounted for. The Public Finance Management Act is clear that imprest must be accounted for within 48 hours. We know the officers who are given imprest; they have personal numbers. Here in Parliament what happens is that if, say, I go out of the country and come back without surrendering my imprest, the time I go to the bank I will find my salary deducted. I wonder why we cannot do this to the civil servants."
}