Executive should stop sideshows and address Auditor's sticky issues

Auditor General Nancy Gathungu before the Senate's CPAC committee. March 4th,2025 [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

In very rare occasions do this column address the same subject matter consecutively or even more than once. However, in the face of the ongoing attacks on the persons of the Auditor General (AG) and the Controller of Budget (CoB) by top officials in the Executive and Legislature, certain issues demand to be made clear to the powers that be.

For clarity, the AG and the CoB are Independent Constitutional Officers established by Articles 229 and 228 respectively under Part 7 of Chapter 12 of the Constitution on Financial Officers and Institutions. The other two institutions under this part are the Salaries and Remuneration Commission and the Central Bank of Kenya. This alone must remove any doubt as to whom the two offices were designed to serve and their pecking order under our constitutional safeguards.