Auditor General Nancy Gathungu on Tuesday, January 17, decried a trend where government officials fail to spend budgetary allocations to their departments within the stipulated time with the aim of embezzling the funds.
Speaking during a meeting with President William Ruto and other independent officers, Gathungu noted that a significant number of state departments failed to meet the requirement of utilizing the allocations within the statutory twelve months.
Consequently, she added, the unutilized funds become an avenue for the wastage of public resources through misallocation and other irregularities.
"But your excellency, we have created a thirteenth month and in that thirteenth month there is a lot of wastage of resources,"
"Unfortunately in July funds that they should not be receiving in July and that creates the loopholes your excellency for wastage, reallocation, misallocation, and irregularities,” Gathungu stated.
She asked the President to institute changes in the laws that govern public finance management to avoid more wastage in his tenure.
According to her, the legislature had a role to play in streamlining the regulations by passing supporting legislation in liaison with the National Treasury.
“The CS National Treasury needs to address this and your excellency this can be done as a directive or as an amendment to the public finance management Act including instituting a crew accounting so your PSs don’t struggle as other PSs have struggled before to absorb funds at the last quarter of the financial year,” she stated.
On his part, President Ruto acknowledged the role of the auditor general and other independent offices by extension, in providing checks and balances for the government.
He urged the Legislature to provide the required support aimed at enhancing mechanisms of governing budget allocation and spending.
"We are cognizant of this robust system of checks and balances, which lock us into a purposive dynamic that permits us to do only right and proper acts and restrains us from pursuing improper and illegitimate objectives and courses of action," Ruto stated.
