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{
    "id": 842541,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/842541/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 159,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Eng.) Hargura",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 827,
        "legal_name": "Godana Hargura",
        "slug": "godana-hargura"
    },
    "content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, I support the adoption of the CPAIC report of the Senate on the Auditor General’s Report for Nakuru County for the FY 2013/2014. This is an old report and the Committee which handled it was the Committee for the first Senate. That is how far we are from doing a proper audit of what is happening. Things took place a long time ago, yet we are commenting on them now. That is serious, because we are not providing effective oversight if we are handling reports four or five years down the line. Madam Temporary Speaker, the Senate is supposed to oversight funds allocated from the national revenue to the counties under Article 96(3). Those are not the only sources of revenues that the counties have; they also generate their own funds. I hope that county assemblies are doing a proper oversight for those funds, because they are supposed to do oversight on those funds. We are relying on the Auditor-General’s report, which is just a paper audit because he also does not go to the field to establish whether the projects that the county says it has done and expended monies on are actually on the ground. Therefore, what we are looking at is just a paper audit. As Senators, we are supposed to do more than that. We represent particular counties in terms of delegations. We should have the capacity to oversight on the ground and make sure that there was public participation when those projects were developed in the first place. I do not think the Auditor-General does that. We also have to make sure that budgeting is also done well. This is because what the people proposed was not actually captured in the Auditor-General’s report. As the Senate, we have been struggling, for the last five years or so, to make sure that we have funds to oversight these counties. With those funds, we can have real time audits and establish whether what the county is budgeting is what was actually prioritized by the public. Coming to the Auditor-General’s report, the Auditor-General is supposed, by law, to submit the audited accounts for a financial year six months after the lapse of the said financial year. However, this report came one year after the lapse of the financial year. The financial year ended in June, 2014; but this report came to the Senate in June, 2015. That is already six months out of the deadline. When you look at the issues that the Auditor-General raises, they are mostly not the real problems on the ground. They will do audits but pick issues which can easily be substantiated by the county or whatever office they are auditing. By doing that – and I am sure this is what the CPAIC is going through – you will get reports, but by the time you are interrogating them, the auditor will say that the issue has been sorted out. You will then end up with nothing to interrogate, even at that level. Madam Temporary Speaker, I attended one such Committee meeting where my Governor was submitting his reports, and on most of the issues, the auditor said that they had been sorted out and settled. Therefore, there was nothing to respond to. Given that that is how the Auditor-General’s office works, we, as Senators need to push to have 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."
}