Explosive audit report to name, shame extravagant spenders

By WINSLEY MASESE and LILLIAN KIARIE

The Office of the Auditor General will this week list government departments, parastatals and other institutions that have misused finances during the 2011/2012 financial year.

The National Audit Office is also set to release county specific audit reports for the four-month period the devolved government units have been in place. The county audit reports will look into the movement of funds in the accounts and realignment of bank account statements.

The reports will also look into the account infrastructure of counties such as personnel tools and reveal the status of moveable assets allocated to each of the counties.

Despite weak and inadequate maintenance of the country’s fiscal accounts records — partly an attempt to derail the audit process — Auditor General Edward Ouko said the list of shame would reveal massive wastage of public resources at both national and county levels.

“The audit report will be more biting and give deeper insights on unattended projects, procurement flaws and unsupported expenditure denting the county’s financial accounts,” he said.

This year’s report will entail audits of the 47 counties, state departments, over 300 parastatals, 171 donor-funded projects and 100 special accounts.

It will also audit the 59 political parties, 175 local authorities, commissions and independent offices and the new projects under the devolution government systems.

Accounting errors

In the past, the financial statements of most ministries and departments were found to be incomplete, totally missing or not up to date, and this year is not any different.  More than Sh297 billion of the Sh900 billion Budget expenditure was either irregularly spent or lost as the audit figures are unsupported or unexplained.

“A lot of wastage is going on within departments revealing imprests which have not been returned, poor accounting and unattended reconciliations,” Ouko said.

He added that the country’s financial market watchdog or other constitutional bodies mandated to streamline the sector also give conflicting statements.

“There are a lot of discrepancies between reports issued by the KRA, Central Bank of Kenya and the Treasury.”

In last year’s audit report, various ministries and departments submitted audit reports of recurrent and development appropriation accounts that were inaccurate.

Accounting errors

The audit report of the year 2009/2010 reported many such appropriations accounts which had errors and reflected balances that did not reconcile with those shown in the respective ledgers.

Additionally, the 2010/2011 Budget revealed expenditure amounting to more than Sh3 billion that had been excluded from the Appropriation Accounts, leading to total expenditure being understated.

Ouko however admitted that auditing political parties poses challenges as most of the accounts sent to the office of the Auditor General have been incomplete and there is no basis to start auditing.

However, he said they would not spare political parties, adding would properly audit them.