Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o: Governors are threatening me
Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o during an interview at her office in September last year. She has told senators that governors have threatened her in a bid to avoid scrutiny.
What you need to know:
- The Controller of Budget has accused governors of threatening her in order to avoid scrutiny of billions spent by the counties.
- While appearing before a House team, Dr Margaret Nyakang’o – whose office is constitutionally mandated to oversee the expenditure of public funds – said county bosses were blocking her bid to access and review key financial records.
- The claim comes amid adverse reports on government spending by the Controller of Budget and Auditor-General.
The Controller of Budget has accused governors of threatening her in order to avoid scrutiny of billions spent by the counties.
While appearing before a House team, Dr Margaret Nyakang’o – whose office is constitutionally mandated to oversee the expenditure of public funds – said county bosses were blocking her bid to access and review key financial records.
The claim comes amid adverse reports on government spending by the Controller of Budget and Auditor-General.
Critics have, however, pointed out that the CoB should stop the wastage of funds before it happens rather than wait to conduct “postmortem” audits.
Appearing before the Senate County Public Investment and Special Funds committee, which is led by Vihiga Senator Godfrey Osotsi, Dr Nyakang’o accused the governors of concealing records to cover up suspect expenditure.
She said her request to be granted access to review county transactions was met with a terse letter from the Council of Governors (CoG) warning her to stay away.
The CoB noted that the mandate of her office ends once devolved funds have been released, adding that she only comes to do monitoring and evaluation and not an examination of the expenditure.
“My office requested to be given access to transactions happening at the counties but the CoG refused to grant access to review the payment statements,” said Dr Nyakang’o.
“I will attach the letter with the threats from the CoG when addressing the committee on the issue so that you also see what I am talking about,” she added.
Questionable expenditure
The CoB explained that her inability to access county accounts had led to questionable expenditures at both levels of government.
This means that she can only monitor public accounts through the quarterly reports provided by public institutions.
Her request to be enabled to monitor real-time cash movements has not been successful, as there is no law compelling the two levels of government to give access.
“We have general guidelines on what should be followed by counties but I don’t have binoculars to look into what people are signing or doing in the counties,” she said.
Narok Senator Ledama Olekina asked the CoB to raise the matter with the Senate for proper legislation to be formulated to compel governors to give her office real-time access to county dealings. “We have heard your frustrations and now you need to write to the Senate. The law will enable you to carry out a forensic audit to make sure only transactions requested are paid and that there are no diversions made,” said Mr Ole Kina.
“How do we support you because I can see your frustrations?” added nominated Senator Hamida Kibwana.
The Controller of Budget Regulations 2021 seek to compel the National Treasury and the Central Bank of Kenya to give the CoB real-time viewer rights to the national exchequer account, the county exchequer account and the accounts of any other public fund.
The newly gazetted regulations, currently awaiting approval by Parliament, aim to give the CoB a sharper peek into cash outflows from the Consolidated Fund, the Equalisation Fund, the County Revenue Fund and any other public accounts to ensure that accounting officers do not breach set ceilings.
Several damning reports have been released by the office of the CoB raising red flags over questionable focus on recurrent rather than development expenditure.
