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{
    "id": 943974,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/943974/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 183,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Ongeri",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 124,
        "legal_name": "Samson Kegeo Ongeri",
        "slug": "samson-ongeri"
    },
    "content": "We looked at the financial statements as presented by the Auditor-General. One of the things that struck us was non-compliance of approved budgets. People just went abandon. In some cases, we noted that the budgets that were approved were only approved for public consumption but the actual budgets that were being operated were other budgets that were not captured both in County Integrated Development Plans (CIDPs) and also the Annual Development Plans (ADPs). Therefore, they operated different modules all together. That is why they faced difficulties with the Auditor- General when they were being questioned on how they applied the funds that were given to them. One of the things you will note is that the vein that runs through which is non- compliance of approved budgets that were presented for various financial years. The second thing you will notice is that some of the budgets are not approved or sanctioned by the CoB because that should be the first entry point. They have to get permission from the CoB before they access resources from the County Revenue Fund (CRF). That is a grey area that we debated a lot in the Committee. We wanted to know how the CoB can literally confirm and verify that the original budgets submitted are the ones they are following. There are grey areas there that we need to look at. Maybe we should look at the law on how this should be done and how much the Controller of Budget must have in terms of control of those resources that are available to the county before they are allowed to spend them in accordance with the budgets which have been passed by the county assemblies. Two, it is sad that in some of the counties - you are going to see many of them when you skim through this Report - there is laxity in collection of own-source revenue. In other words, there is under collection. They are only waiting for the regular County Allocation of Revenue Act (CARA) to be able to spend. In fact, in one of the counties - I think it is Baringo - we noticed that the own- source revenue fell by as far as 78 per cent. Therefore, where are you expecting to get money to spend on your own other programmes that you have laid out in accordance with your budget? This is a major problem that we have noted that needs to be corrected. We have made appropriate recommendations in as far as that one is concerned. Indeed, this own-source revenue under collection, there is always an overestimation of how much they are able to collect so that they can be able to attract some more funds from the fiscal responsibility index. Because of this, they are unable to collect those funds and that piles up. When you heard the Chairman, when he was moving his Report, say that, at the end of this financial year, the pending bills stood at Kshs108.9 billion; an increase of Kshs46 billion from the previous financial year; when I shall pick up on the pending bills, this is the kind of mess that we are noticing in this own-source revenue. Unfortunately, one of the things that we noted is that when you looked at the banking elements, one would have expected that all own-source revenue would appear in the county revenue account. What we found out in the case of Busia, there were more than 25 accounts in various commercial banks, totalling to something like Kshs534, 189,994.54. When we challenged them why they must have multiplicity of these accounts, the message that was coming through is that, at that time, they needed to collect because they The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}