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{
    "id": 946477,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/946477/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 163,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Olekina",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 407,
        "legal_name": "Ledama Olekina",
        "slug": "ledama-olekina"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. I rise to second the Report tabled by my good Chairperson. The issue of fiduciary responsibility is an important matter. Having spent a lot of time interrogating the Auditor-General’s report, we find that there are so many challenges in terms of administration in county governments. Many county administrators in the county treasuries have no idea about the correlation between the law and how they spend money. They have three pieces of legislation, which I hope every county government can use as a Bible. One of them is the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we did not spend a lot of time looking at the reports for the 2013/2014 Financial Year, because these are reports which had been considered by the previous Committee, although we adopted them. When we looked at the violation of the PFM Act by most county governments, it really shocked us. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the second piece of legislation which was being heavily violated is the Public Audit Act. During the audit process, you will find that most Governors have no clue on how to go through the audit process. The Chairperson mentioned here about Governors coming in and bringing a lot of documents to the Senate, while Section 31 of the Public Audit Act is very clear on the process of the audit. Before the Auditor-General issues a management letter or the opinion, county governments are given 14 days to find out where they have gone wrong in order to mitigate. However, in the Financial Year 2013/2014, most county governments received a disclaimer of opinion, which clearly meant that there was limitation of scope. County governments were not keeping records well. Therefore, the issue of book keeping is something which the Senate, as the House which defends devolution and protects county governments, should really emphasize on, and say those county governments must improve on their record keeping. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, if you look at the issue of the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS), you will find that many transactions by these county governments were being carried out outside of the IFMIS. The other big problem is the accounting system being used by the county governments. Most county governments are using an accrued system, although they can only use a cash-based system legally. 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."
}