Members of the National Assembly from the Decentralised Funds Accounts Committee have raised concerns over the qualifications of account managers handling the National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF) and the National Government Affirmative Action Fund (NGAAF) accounts.
They attributed these concerns to the repeated audit queries raised by the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) on the management of Decentralized funds.
Furthermore, the committee alleged that reports on misappropriation of funds, projects' incompletion and stalling, unprocedural re-allocation of funds and failure to submit relevant documents during the audit processes were a clear indication of incompetence from the account managers.
“There should be no audit queries on some of these issues if indeed we are dealing with professionals who understand their mandates and are qualified for their jobs.” Kilifi County Woman Representative Gertrude Mbeyu stated.
Nominated MP Dorothy Muthoni observed that some of the account managers might not be privy to their mandates and those of the Project Management Committees (PMCs)
“It is clear that most of these account managers are not conversant with audit processes, records keeping, and even project management," she stated.
They sought to know how much training the account managers received and how often as similar problems kept present themselves year after year.
The committee further called for the audit of the content of their training manuals, as well as the qualifications of personnel holding these positions.
“Are we getting value for money, and what are these officers trained on annually if the same audit issues keep recurring in each reporting cycle?” Posed Homa Bay County Woman Representative Joyce Bensouda.
West Mugirango MP Stephen Mogaka backed this assertion, stating, “As a committee, we have a duty to protect these funds. We need an assessment of the capacity of the Fund Accounts Managers, since these continuous reports indicate a gap that needs to be filled.”
“You cannot hold an unqualified person accountable for any mess created in undertaking a job they’re mandated to carry out with disregard of their qualification," he added.
However, the committee chair still questioned the OAG on the depth of their auditing processes since some of the issues reported had been contested by the account managers when they appeared before the committees.
