The office of the Auditor-General has been granted powers to scrutinize the cash books of the military by the High Court.
This comes after the Court declared nine sections of 2015 Public Audit Act that prohibited the auditing of military expenditure records unconstitutional.
According to the ruling delivered by Justice Chacha Mwita, Section 40 of Public Audit Act required the Auditor-General “to hold an inception meeting at the highest level to agree on areas on national security and determine the appropriate audit approach to ensure confidentiality of information."
The Act further required that the Auditor-General be vetted with a possibility of the auditorial reports being redacted by the security organs in order to conceal the people's identities and to avoid revealing assets and liabilities.
[caption caption="KDF soldiers in Somalia"]
[/caption]
Going forward, however, the records of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), the Kenya Defence Force (KDF) and the National Police Service will be audited.
In making the ruling, Justice Chacha emphasised on the independence of the Office of the Auditor-General, an establishment of the Constitution.
He concluded that the said sections were curtailing the powers of the auditing office although they were supposed to enhance his authority as an oversight over public expenditure.
The Auditor-General and his employees are appointed by the Public Service Commission although the revoked Act gave Parliament greater control over the office.
Transparency International (TI) filed the case with the Attorney General as the first defendant and wanted the court to declare certain sections of the Act unconstitutional as it limited the Auditor's capacity in auditing public expenditure.
In 2016, Kenya's military budget amounted to Sh96 Billion which was more than a combination of Uganda's (Sh41 Billion) and Ethiopia's (Sh47 Billion) expenditure.
[caption caption="President Uhuru inspecting armoured military vehicle"]
[/caption]
