Ababu Namwamba’s committee warn Govt officials they risk being declared ‘thieves’ of public funds

Public Accounts Committee Chairperson Ababu Namwamba

NAIROBI, KENYA: A Parliamentary watchdog committee has issued a warning to government officials that they will be taken to have stolen public money if they fail to provide audit documents to the Auditor General within set deadlines.

The Public Accounts Committee Chairperson Ababu Namwamba has lamented that many officials often rush to provide critical documents only after they have been adversely mentioned in reports by the Auditor-General.

“We wonder why people don’t provide the required documents in good time to the auditing officials. From now on, we will be very strict on such individuals and will take them to have misused public money,” said Namwamba

He added: “We need to see government officials demonstrate enthusiasm for accountability just as they often display enthusiasm when they appeal for more funds from Parliament.”

Ababu told the Standard that from now henceforth, they will strictly enforce the audit timelines set for the government agencies. According to the constitution, state departments have July,August and September to put their books in order and share them with the Auditor-General, who then has October, November and December to compile reports to forward it to Parliament.

The National Assembly also has three months (January, February and march) to debate and dispose off the reports, recommending   censure for government departments that fail to account for money or are found to have misused the money.

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On Tuesday, Auditor-General Edward Ouko lamented before PAC that his officers often fail to receive complete audit documents in time from government agencies only for officials from the same departments to cry foul when damning reports are published against them.

“People often complain that we are tarnishing their names when they failed to give relevant documents that we have requested from them. We compile our reports based on the documents that we managed to access at the time. Our aim is not to tarnish anyone’s name,” he said.

In many cases, it takes the intervention of PAC to have state officials to submit critical documents to the Auditor-General’s office, thereby delaying the auditing process.

On Tuesday, tt emerged that the Interior Ministry which had been required to account Sh2.3 billion of unaccounted founds failed to provide documents in good time to the Auditor General. The documents were provided on the same days, thanks to the intervention of PAC which termed the delay as ‘highly irregular.’

Ababu said that PAC has managed to clear the backlog of approving reports from the Auditor General going back five years and will now enforce the Constitutional audit timelines to prevent future backlogs.