MCAs change committee’s leadership, cites laxity in scrutinising audit reports

The county assembly has changed the leadership of the County Public Accounts and Investments Committee (PAIC) claiming laxity by the chairperson.

The committee’s members demoted its chairperson, Daniel Mugweru (pictured) of Umande ward and replaced him with his Thingithu counterpart Stephen Nderitu, alleging that Mugweru was not acting on audit reports on time.

The MCAs cited failure to look into audit reports since 2015 hence a failure to scrutinise financial spending by the county government.

The MCAs cited laxity in the committee’s accountability role, saying audit reports were crucial oversight tools.

“There are so many pending audit reports and we commit to scrutinise them in the shortest time possible so that people get to know how their money is spent,” said Nderitu.

A committee document seen by The Standard shows that the PAIC had 21 pending reports. The reports were laid in the House and committed to the committee for scrutiny between 2017 and 2019, but they are yet to be scrutinised.

Among them are reports on Financial Statements of Laikipia County Executive Car and Mortgage Fund.