Shock as Kisumu auditors skip key meeting for lack of air fare

The Auditor-General’s office is facing a cash crunch in the wake of budget cuts by the Kenya Kwanza administration, a move that risks derailing its work of ensuring accountability in use of taxes by public institutions.

So bad is the situation that a Senate watchdog committee meeting adjourned Monday after auditors skipped it, citing lack of air fare.

The Senate Public Accounts Committee, chaired by Homa Bay Senator Moses Kajwang’, was to consider audit queries for the Kisumu County Executive for the financial year that ended June 2020.

However, the meeting failed to take off as the auditors did not travel from the Lakeside City due to logistical challenges.

The committee heard that the problem started on Thursday so a meeting of the top management was called to find a solution. However, the engagement went on into Sunday night, and then into Monday morning, but the solution remained elusive.

“This was when it became clear that they would not make it. The morning meeting did not offer any solution,” a liaison officer attached to the committee said, adding that follow-up meetings were planned with other arms of government to try to unlock the situation.

The revelation came after Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna asked the auditor when he became aware that his colleagues from Kisumu were unable to travel.

The committee had suspected sabotage by the county government, including threats to the auditors, and had asked why they were not alerted about the challenges.

Senator Kajwang’ then asked: “Are the auditors alive or could they have been abducted and kept somewhere?”

The officer said they were safe but could not make it to the meeting due to logistic challenges.

In its explanation, the county said they have a cordial relationship with the auditors and at no point did they intimidate the officers.

“This is the first time we are experiencing an incident where auditors do not attend an accountability meeting. There is a basic decay in the institution charged with accountability mandates,” said Kisumu Governor Anyang’ Nyong’o.

The Nancy Githungu office was allocated Sh6.89 billion in the current financial year against a budgetary requirement of Sh8.9 billion.

Further hindering the office from carrying out its mandate and enhancing accountability are new austerity measures instituted by President William Ruto, which saw the office lose Sh137 million in the new supplementary budget.

The lack of proper funding also reduces the scope of audits in terms of coverage and comprehensiveness.

In the financial year ended June 2021, the office was allocated Sh5.53 billion against a resource requirement of Sh8.9 billion.

Further complicating the operations of the office are additional roles for auditors, which will see them audit all the 10,000 public schools in Kenya.

The officer posed: “In the last pilot we did, of about 10 schools, we spent Sh26 million. If we spent Sh26 million to audit 10 schools, how much would 10,000 schools cost?”

The office will also be tasked with auditing all level 4 and 5 health facilities across the country as they receive about Sh300 million each from the national government.

This is in addition to auditing the expenditure of the county executive, county assembly and the national government.

“We have to audit all the funds. Each county has an average of five funds. Multiply that by 47. The fact is that we don’t have money. Our officers do not have air fare. It is bad. And if things cannot change, then the office will be paralysed.”

A move by Parliament to fix the annual budgetary allocation to the office has not borne fruit.

The proposal was for an allocation of not less than 0.5 percent of all revenue collected by the national government each year, based on the most recently audited accounts of revenue received, as approved by the National Assembly.

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