Treasury hires private firm to audit first Eurobond cash

CS National Treasury Henry Rotich. [BEVERLYNE MUSILI, STANDARD]

The National Treasury has appointed a private firm to conduct a special audit of the proceeds of the first Eurobond, bypassing its own internal auditors and the Kenya National Audit Office.

Treasury has picked PKF Kenya to do the special audit. 

Consequently, PKF has written to all ministries and counties seeking information on monies disbursed to them from the kitty.

“The National Treasury has engaged PKF Kenya to carry out a special audit of the receipts and disbursements of the Eurobond proceeds into the Consolidated Fund,” a letter to one of the counties from PKF Manager Paul Mwangi reads.

“For this reason, and in order to assist our auditors, PKF Kenya, we kindly request you to confirm directly to PKF the amount disbursed to the county government for financial year ended 30th June 2014 and June 2015,” the letter dated March 19, 2018, adds.

This development comes just days after Auditor General Edward Ouko revealed that he was yet to conclude the audit of the monies.

In 2016, President Uhuru Kenyatta publicly railed at the Auditor General's attempt to travel to New York to trace the movement of the Eurobond cash.

Since then, Mr Ouko has refrained from commenting in public about the funds.

In September 2016, Ouko declared that the Sh215 billion from the Eurobond had not been accounted for, two years after the Government claimed the cash was allocated to ministries.

“Investigations... are still ongoing and the accuracy of the net proceeds of Sh215, 469,626,035.75 is yet to be ascertained,” he said at the time.