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{
    "id": 683825,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/683825/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 217,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Manje",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1669,
        "legal_name": "Joseph Wathigo Manje",
        "slug": "joseph-wathigo-manje"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this chance to support the PAC Report for the 2013/2014 Financial Year. The impression you get when you go through this Report is that financial reporting in this country is not very good. It appears as if it is overlapping. You will not see a very clear demarcation between one financial year and the other. The overlap has become so large it has affected the accounting period of the following year. Also, there is an observation that Accounting Officers do not respect the management letters written by the auditors. The relationship between the auditors and the Accounting Officers is a bit sour because when they appear before us, we get the impression that there is a tug of war as if they are not working for the same course. I envisage a situation where the accounting cycle will be properly observed. If it is not, there will be a lot of unexplained circumstances. There are some areas that need to be highlighted, like the issue of pending bills. It has become an issue in all Reports of PAC of the National Assembly. It keeps on recurring every time. We need to do something as a country. We need to evaluate ourselves and see if we are doing it in the right way. Maybe, this issue should be sorted out in different fora. There is also the issue of unsupported expenditure. The Auditor-General reports that there was an unexplained expenditure of about Kshs67 billion. When it came to evaluation, we realised that it was just a matter of reconciliation. In some cases, it took time for records of expenditure at the county level to get into the records at the ministry level. This was reported as a lost amount. This gives the impression that the accounting period is not very smooth. The three months that are normally given after the closure of the accounting period are not properly utilised to make sure that all the expenditures are reconciled. There is also the issue of un- surrendered imprests, which keeps on recurring in almost all the ministries. Officers take monies for various usages and they do not submit returns within the required time. The imprests surrender period used to be 48 hours, but it has since been pushed to one week. This will give people who have spent money ample time to surrender imprests. We also realised that the assets of the Government are not properly captured. They are bought using public money and yet, they are not properly recorded. The inventory is not well kept in most of the ministries. That area needs to be checked. Generally, because of the increase in the amounts of monies allocated to the ministries, there is a tendency of misappropriation of public funds. Capacities of the spending units are not established before large sums of money are given to them. The capacity of a unit to spend money should correspond with the amount of money allocated to it. For example, if you want to give a lot of money to a certain government body, you should enhance its capacity to spend it. We also realised that monies given to the counties are being misappropriated. There ought to be some ways of making sure that monies given to the county governments are properly utilised. There is a general feeling that monies being sent to the counties are free-for-all. There are so many people who take money from the county government kitties, and it is as if the Auditor-General is not in a position to make sure that good accounting takes place at that level. Also, the formula of sharing revenue should be changed a bit. As we continue, we have to consider the productivity of a county. Some governors are not collecting revenue because they expect money from the national Government. If we do not change this approach, we are likely to continue with wastage on the ground. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}