Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi has issued a 10-day demand to government ministries, State Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to submit their annual asset reports to the National Treasury.
In a statement to the respective bosses, the Prime Cabinet Secretary explained that the 19th performance reporting cycle has come to end and there will be no extension for MDAs yet to submit their reports.
In a speech read on his behalf by the Principal Secretary State Department for Performance Management and Delivery Services, Ann Wang’ombe, Mudavadi warned that late submissions will not be tolerated.
"As accounting officers, you will have tracking dashboards. To protect you against unnecessary apprehension, adequate resources for implementation have been allocated for these overdue fiscal reforms. We are ready for the reform agenda, so should you be," Mudavadi stated.
Mudavadi's ultimatum comes barely four days after President William Ruto chided his Cabinet Secretaries for for not being punctual with their activities, and being clueless about their ministries.
On Tuesday, August 1, President Ruto locked out some cabinet secretaries, principal secretaries and parastatal heads for arriving late to the performance contracts signing event at State House, Nairobi.
"For those who came late, who are members of the Executive. I will be expecting a written explanation from you. The traffic claims don't add up.
"If you cannot keep time with your employer you have basically dismissed yourself," Ruto told the Cabinet Secretaries who came late for his meeting.
Mudavadi explained that National Treasury is operationalising assets module in Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS).
Mudavadi emphasized the significance of avoiding past mistakes and urged government officials not to repeat them. He highlighted the crucial role of reports in establishing a real-time automated platform to capture government assets data and facilitate efficient reporting for the Treasury.
The existing manual inventory management system was criticized by Mudavadi for its inefficiencies, which hinder visibility and control of inventory levels. Moreover, it is time-consuming, susceptible to human errors, and does not allow for the optimal utilization of human resources.
"To achieve the goal of maximizing value of government investments, the National Treasury has initiated fiscal reforms to automate assets and inventory management in MDAs and in County Governments," Mudavadi reiterated in his statement.
He stated that the fiscal reforms will be pursued in line with the President Ruto's Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BeTA).
"Importantly, the changes improve decision-making through data mining and analytics. The decision to pilot these reforms in the Executive and National Treasury, before being roll-out to MDAs, shows the level of Government commitment to see this process through.
"For avoidance of doubt, the reforms are in tandem with our resolve to automate all government processes and services, key among them, the management of public assets," he affirmed.
The Prime Cabinet Secretary reiterated that the fiscal reforms must be given the serious stimulus required since asset management is included as one of the key performance indicators in the 20th performance reporting cycle.
