Chief Registrar of the Judiciary (CRJ) Anne Amadi has affirmed that the Judiciary would take responsibility for any irregularities uncovered by an audit report.
Ms Amadi who was put to task by Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday over findings of the report said the Judiciary would own up to any malpractice as presented in the report conducted by the Auditor General on the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) and Judiciary.
“We were supposed to go for a retreat as top judicial officers to discuss the report’s findings. We will take responsibility where we went wrong so that in coming years, the Judiciary becomes a reliable place for administration of justice,” Amadi said.
The committee, led by Budalangi MP Ababu Namwamba questioned Amadi over a series of irregularities including procurement procedures by the Judiciary, human resource management and irregular payment of allowances among others.
She explained why the Judiciary was paying rent for premises that judicial officers did not occupy.
Contrary to former CRJ Gladys Shollei’s submissions last week where she presented copies of lease documents of all premises, Amadi told the committee that she could not trace any leases and was not sure if they existed.
“We have had to send notice to the owners to say we will not continue paying rent for Elgon Place. We cannot trace leases therefore it is not clear if there were leases or not,” she said.
Mrs Shollei had told the committee that due process was followed in procuring all the premises adding that copies of the leases were forwarded to the JSC who made approvals before they were forwarded to the Lands ministry.
radiation fears
The committee members questioned how rent payments were being made without a lease agreement or even how the contract had been terminated by the Judiciary without such crucial documents.
Kangogo Bowen (Marakwet East) wanted to know why the contract had been terminated due to radiation fears even after three reports declared it safe for occupancy. “You have the Kadhis court just a few metres from Elgon Place. Are you relocating them as well?” Bowen posed.
Amadi said the Judiciary could not identify “the correct position” of those tasked with investigating effects of radiation rays in the premise.
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