Senate committee throws out Governor Mutua for being 'unprepared'

Machakos County Governor Alfred Mutua at Parliament Buildings where he appeared before the Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC) to answer corruption allegations in his county. [Moses Omusula, Standard]

A parliamentary watchdog team on Thursday turned away Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua for being unprepared for the hearing. 

The Senate Public Accounts and Investment Committee said Dr Mutua did not have requisite documents for the scrutiny of expenditure for the 2014-2015 financial year.

The county chief had been summoned to respond to audit queries raised by Auditor General Edward Ouko.

Committee chairman Senator Moses Kajwang’ said they could not proceed without the documents showing he had satisfactorily complied with a requirement by the auditor.

“We want quality to be the heart of our proceedings. It will not be productive for us as a committee to continue with this session without seeing the documents you are referring to in your responses,” the Homa Bay lawmaker told Mutua.

Mutua said he submitted the required documents to the office of the Senate Clerk last year.

“I am appearing today over the same issue that I was supposed to respond to last year before the elections. My assumption was that the documents I submitted last year are still valid and figured out that we don’t need to incur extra costs making photocopies,” he said.

He apologised and said the error was caused by miscommunication.

In his report, the Auditor General said the governor's office had not provided documents to show how Sh7 billion was spent.

In the absence of the supporting documents, the manner in which the amount was spent could not be confirmed, Mr Ouko said.

Of the Sh7 billion, Sh3.3 billion was spent on salaries while Sh1.3 billion bought goods and services. Some Sh1.9 billion spent