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{
    "id": 800736,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/800736/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 296,
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "We have already engaged the Auditor-General to find a different way of looking at the reports coming out of the counties because we are not doing any better even in the Senate. We had a debate here about presentation of reports for 2013/2014. A number of Members said that they are not interested in the 2013/2014 reports but are rather interested in the 2016/2017 reports. However, with a lot of humility and respect to my fellow colleagues, I think that is not the right line of argument. This is because there are those people who come from Nairobi City County who are interested in what Governor Sonko is doing today but there are also those who are interested in what Governor Kidero did. There are those who come from Bungoma County who are interested in what Governor Wangamati is doing today and are also interested in what Governor Lusaka did in the days gone by. When we come here and say that the past reports can just be swept under the carpet, yes, we can forget about it, but what about the citizens of Bungoma who need an account for the tenure of Governor Lusaka? What about the citizens of Kisumu who need an account for the tenure of Governor Ranguma? We have these backlogs because we have been doing our audit process wrongly. Let us not be too harsh, as a Senate, on the National Assembly, particularly on its PAC. Though I believe that they can do better, we need to come up with a better framework. We need to establish the capacity and the competence to carry out some of these audit reviews internally. Some of us have been looking at the possibility of expanding the Public Finance Management Act so as to expand the section that talks about the Parliamentary Budget Office, for it to become a Parliamentary Budget and Oversight Office. We took a tour of the United States and went to about 10 States with Sen. Mutula Kilonzo Jnr. and Sen. Dullo and we saw that there is an oversight or audit office in every state legislature. In fact, in many jurisdictions, the Auditor-General reports to Parliament. We have an Auditor-General who reports and is directed by no one, except the Constitution and the people of Kenya. We need to develop competencies within Parliament for we do not have forensic experts and we do not have investigators. I chair a Committee that is supposed to investigate, but there is no one trained in investigation, forensics or data analysis. If you bring a letter to me, I have no capacity to tell if it is forgery or not yet these are established professions. As Parliament, we need to invest. Through our Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC), we must ensure that we set up a unit that will support the committees and oversights them. That is the only way we will make sense out of these conditional allocations that we are adding and help the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly to be up to date with their audit."
}