Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich has asked MPs to summon State House officials to answer questions that he felt were beyond his circle of influence.
The National Assembly Finance and National Planning Committee had sent a summon letter to CS requiring him to appear in the Chambers to respond to queries regarding the lifestyle audit that President Uhuru Kenyatta ordered in 2018.
“Some of these things are beyond the Treasury. We run the risk of us getting information from other entities and come to report here. It is good that you summon those with any information that you require,” Rotich told the committee.
“I regret that I don’t have the answers that you require. I don’t need to appear before you as you had summoned me since we think we have exhausted all the answers,” he added.
In Kenya's loan application to the World Bank, CS Rotich had stated that the government had conducted lifestyle audits for all public servants.
He also added that the government was aggressively executing the compliance to wealth declaration by public servants in a bid to secure the Ksh75 billion loan which was finally approved.
Treasury and State House had traded blame on the frustrations of the lifestyle audit that has seen many government accountants remain at home and continue to draw salaries.
When State House Spokesperson Kanze Dena was contacted by The Standard earlier in June, she responded that Treasury had the answers to the lifestyle audit that was conducted in secrecy.
“Most of the officers affected are employees of Treasury where the principal secretary has their schemes of service. I will prefer you talk to the ministry to get accurate information since the report was sent there,” Dena advised.
Treasury PS Kamau Thugge, on the other hand, told journalists that the “Office of the President and the Public Service Commission (PSC) are best placed to answer that."
