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{
    "id": 842575,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/842575/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 193,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, this is the first financial year for the county governments. This is because in the first half of 2013, the Transition Authority (TA) funds were given to the counties; but this could be the proper financial year in which the counties budgeted and expended the monies. If you look at this report, as much as it was the first one, it looks as if this county did all the wrongs which would be done by anybody who was doing public procurement. This is because it starts with unlawful expenditure, and then there are instances where procurement rules were not followed but goods and services were supplied as per the details of requisition.Then it says that the procurement rules were not followed and the Committee could not ascertain whether the public funds were used prudently. Alternatively, there were instances where procurement rules were not followed and the goods and services delivered did not match the specifications of the goods requested through the Local Purchase Orders (LPOs). There are instances where irregularities occurred and the county government entity detected and took disciplinary action; or where procurement rules were not followed but the Committee ascertained that no public funds were lost. There are also instances where the county government entity failed to submit the required documents during the times of audit, but subsequently submitted the documents. There were other instances where the Committee could not make conclusive decisions due to lack of sufficient information and documentation. Madam Temporary Speaker, this shows that theCounty Executive in this county was by then on a learning curve because they made all the possible mistakes. I hope that they are now in a better position when it comes to procurement, because we still have the same Governor in Kilifi. Madam Temporary Speaker, going forward, I urge the Committee to strive to deal with live issues. Any outstanding audit report for each county should be lumped together so that when the governor or the executive appears, they do it up to date, such that we do not call them for financial years 2014, 2015 and 2016.We shouldlump them together so that we clear with one county and then move on to the next. That way, we will fast-track the oversight process. Madam Temporary Speaker, if you look at the kind of issues which were raised, they are very serious because they all involve huge amounts of public funds. For example, the purchase of the governor’s residence for Kshs140 million. Our Committee will have to do a technical audit to establish whether the county got value for money. We should not just rely on the Auditor General; we can engage professionals like quantity surveyors to establish whether there was value for money, because that building is still there. That way, we will be sure that public funds have been expended prudently. We need to make sure that we do proper auditing and even go beyond the auditor’s report and do our own technical audits. That is where maybe either the Parliamentary Audit Office or the legal office comes in. Madam Temporary Speaker, on revenue which the counties generate, we need to look at what has been happening, because I know that this issue has been recurring since the last Senate. We have all been complaining that county governments are now 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."
}