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{
    "id": 863079,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/863079/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 322,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kibwezi East, WDM-K",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Ms.) Jessica Mbalu",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 432,
        "legal_name": "Jessica N. Mbalu",
        "slug": "jessica-mbalu"
    },
    "content": "for what we call suo moto investigation whenever a wave of corruption is detected. We must stop corruption before it happens. The recommendations of the House are not implemented in an organised or systemic manner. The Cabinet Secretary of the National Treasury and other accounting officers should be compelled to give full reports on measures taken to implement the resolutions of the House. This is in the Committee Report and we have said that three months after the adoption of this Report, there must be implementation of the recommendations. You are aware that, as the Public Accounts Committee, we unearthed a lot of fraud or symptoms of fraud. However, the EACC and the Directorate of Criminal Investigation DCI take long and they do not handle those cases. I wish that this time round, such investigating agencies would be at the forefront to handle those Reports as urgent Reports and work on them so that we do not kill the good work of PAC, PIC and other oversight committees. You are aware that the first National Youth Service scandal was unearthed by PAC. I had the pleasure to have served in the last PAC and some of our recommendations are now being used. As the Chair reiterated, we had issues that rose from the audit queries and most of them cut across every Ministry and every State Department. Sometimes, we have been asking ourselves whether those are errors of commission or omission when we have issues such as gross under-expenditure, pending bills and outstanding imprest. We are aware that we have qualified staff in Ministries, yet we find small mistakes that can be dealt with by a small entity. We had gross under-expenditure which was around Kshs192.6 billion. The accounting officers attributed this budget mainly to delays in the Exchequer issues, delayed disbursement of donor funds and persistent systematic challenges such as the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS). Issues of outstanding imprest were common in most of the Ministries and Departments. For the financial year ending 30th June 2015, the outstanding imprest was totaling to Kshs117.55 million which ought to have been recovered before 30th June, 2015, yet they were not recovered. On the issue of pending bills, the Committee observed that during the year ending 30th June, 2015, the number of Ministries and State Departments did not settle bills amounting to Kshs42 billion. That is a high figure on public funds. On statement on outstanding public debt, that has been stated very well by the very able Chair. We have also had issues of maintenance of accounting records. The Committee noted that maintenance of accounting records including cash books and bank accounts across a number of Ministries and State Departments during the year under review were not kept. Other issues were challenges in the IFMIS. This is the elephant in the room. Some of the issues of procurement and issues of funds were being attributed to IFMIS challenges. The report is voluminous and Members should read it through. We came up with some recommendations and I wish that the relevant bodies such as the DCI and the EACC could take this matter seriously. The accounting officers in the National Treasury and Planning and the Commissioner-General of Kenya Revenue Authority must demonstrate efforts of collecting and accounting for tax revenues. The other recommendation that the Committee came up with is that the accounting officers must, at all times, ensure that documentation relating to financial statements is submitted to the Auditor-General pursuant to the provisions of Section 68(2) (1) of the Public Finance Management Act…"
}