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{
    "id": 967951,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/967951/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 571,
    "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": "Allow me to thank the Chairman, Hon. Opiyo Wandayi. He spent sleepless nights working together with the secretariat led by the Committee Clerk, Oscar Namulanda. We have presented the Financial Statements for the National Government for the Financial Year 2016/17 to this House and the beneficiaries are the county governments. We are dealing with the most recent audited accounts and the beneficiary is the public. This is because we are looking into the prudent expenditure of the public funds. We have made recommendations and if the authorities and agencies follow them, public funds will be safe and there will be more development and the public will benefit. Allow me to talk about a few issues because of limitation of time. The Committee was able to separate critical and elephant issues. We made recommendations on the elephant issues which we hope and pray that they will be adopted. Amongst the critical issues is Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS). Year after year, as we present our audited accounts report to the National Assembly IFMIS has been an elephant issue. There is also the issue of Consolidated Funds that could not be explained or matched with the expenses. The Cabinet Secretary (CS) has been briefed on this matter and the Committee made recommendations. One, being that on a daily basis the relevant state departments should reconcile their accounts. They should not wait till closure of the financial year to reconcile because the Auditor-General raises queries especially on the issue of payments. We found most ministries do not keep fixed assets registers in the right form, yet this is an accounting document. Sometimes, this could be an overlook. So, this Committee has made recommendations and the Government units should ensure accounting is done as per the standards in the relevant Acts. There is also the issue of unsupported documentation as the Chair put it very well. It is usually a shame when an accounting officer appears before us as a Committee and they are not able to produce documents. They are not even able to explain the supporting documents as they were supposed to have been presented to the Auditor General (AG) at the time of audit. We have had a lot of queries and questions including procurement documentation. Some accounting officers have not been able to even give us procurement minutes. That is why we say the Devil is in the details. The Committee has gone ahead to make recommendations to ensure such accounting officers are reprimanded or the right action is taken to ensure that the accounting procedures or public funds are safe and prudently used. Some accounting officers were not able to explain to us how they arrived at some procurement process methods. One would not be able to explain direct procurement, open tenders and issues of specialised procurement. Such have been picked by the Members of the Committee and the relevant recommendations have been made which I plead that the Government agencies pick up to ensure that such are put together. There is also the issue of outstanding imprest. I must state and present to the House that at the closure of the 2016/2017 financial year, the amounts that were not surrendered or were unaccounted for in terms of imprest were to the tune of Kshs518, 096,643. We have made recommendations on this. We have also stated the ministries or the Government agencies that have been affected so that they can be picked one by one and the amounts of money that have not been collected in terms of imprest noted. Parliament gives a lot of money to ministries and Government agencies. We recommend that such state departments should account for public funds in the right way, manner and be able to report on the same. There is the issue of pending bills. We have had issues of contractors working and not being paid. I must report to the House that at the closure of the 2016/2017 financial year on 30th June 2017, amounts of Kshs16, 712,379,101 had not been paid. We established Exchequer issues The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}