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"content": "Auditor-General’s reports did not come to the House on day one; they came almost two years later. Madam Temporary Speaker, the Governor for Turkana County was invited for investigatory meetings. Interestingly, six meetings were held in the case of Turkana. The meetings were held on the 1st, 2nd, 23rd, 24th September, 2015; and 9th October, 2015. This also included a meeting held in Turkana County on the 9th of October, 2015. Those are the six meetings that the Committee held to consider the Report of one county. Once again, as you had said, if it takes six meetings to consider one report, you can imagine if you were to multiply that by the 47 reports for the county executives, and again by 47 reports for the county assemblies. The Report of the Committee was adopted at a meeting held from 3rd to 5th of February, 2016. Madam Temporary Speaker, the Governor for Turkana County was invited to respond to queries in his capacity as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The Report that was laid on the Table of the House on 10th May, 2018, contains the detailed observations and recommendations. If I may highlight some of the observations, it was established that the County Executive Committee (CEC) member in charge of finance and the Chief Officer for finance did not have academic or working experience on financial matters. We have the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act and Financial Reporting Standards and therefore, when your Chief Officer and the CEC for finance have no experience on financial matters, that is a recipe for disaster. The Committee has, therefore, made certain recommendations on capacity building and recruitment of competent staff. Madam Temporary Speaker, it was also noted that the executive failed to attract the services of competent personnel for various cadres, including specialists on land matters, engineering and finance. We will remember that Turkana County is one part of the country, which prior to devolution, felt that Nairobi was Kenya; and that Turkana was not Kenya. This could then explain why, in the first years of devolution, professionals were hesitant to go to Turkana County. However, I am informed that matters have since changed and that the county currently attracts professionals because it offers good terms of service. The third observation was that the County did not follow procurement rules and regulations in sourcing for goods and services. That is not surprising because the Chief Officer and the CEC Member for finance did not have the requisite experience. On various occasions, the county Government made down-payments of up to 50 per cent to suppliers before goods and services were delivered or provided, which was in clear breach of the Public Finance Management Act. Similarly, we noted that the procurement and finance departments lacking personnel and the county government had difficulty attracting specialized skilled workers like engineers. Madam Temporary Speaker, the seventh observation is that there was under- absorption of the budget. The Turkana County Government Ministry of Lands, Urban & Physical Planning did not utilize its allocation to the tune of Kshs151 million, meaning that it did not utilize 87.5 per cent of its allocation. Therefore, when you have a 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."
}