Help counties to manage public finances, Kajwang tells auditors

The Senate County Public Accounts Committee (CPAC) has told officers serving in the Office of the Auditor General to be proactive and reorganise their operations.

The committee argues that the current adversarial approach in auditing must be abandoned and a more friendly tact adopted if the process is to be of value in public finance management.

“We reiterate that auditing should be more preventive and not the current state where it acts as mortician,” said Senator Moses Kajwang (pictured), who is the chairman of the committee.

He made the comments following concern raised by Kisumu Governor Anyang’ Nyong’o when he appeared before the committee to respond to audit queries raised by the Auditor General in the county’s financial accounts for the 2020/21 financial year.

Prof Nyong’o triggered the debate when he challenged the chief auditor to focus more on helping counties get it right rather than waiting for mistakes to happen only to come and point them out way too late.

“AG should also advise county governments,” said Nyong’o in response after the chief auditor accused his administration of failing to provide critical documents related to the procurement of goods and services.

“They should step in and offer advise so that we focus on preventing the many missteps being seen in the management of public finances. We should abandon the adversarial system.” 

The Auditor General had taken issue with the failure by the Kisumu county executive to provide documents in support of the queries raised in the report.

One of the queries relates to an expenditure of Sh5 million the county used to renovate the official residence of the Deputy Governor. The auditor General established the Bills of Quantities were not signed, had no preparation date and tender reference numbers.  The agreement did not disclose the contract timeframe and the contract amount.

 The works of Sh5 million were not supported by an inspection and acceptance report and letter of appointment of the inspection committee.

The County also irregularly purchased a bus but could not submit documents related to the deal.

Nyong’o admitted that failure to produce the documents reflected badly on his administration and welcomed the proposal by the committee to bring in the EACC to help determine the authenticity of the documents that will be tabled.