PS put to task over spending of donor cash

A parliamentary watchdog committee has ordered the Fisheries Principal Secretary Sicily Kariuki to explain how Sh3.2 billion that the donors gave the ministry was used.

The Parliamentary Accounts Committee chaired by Budalang’i MP Ababu Namwamba gave the ministry seven days to find the documents and present them to the committee as well as the National Audit Office.

The PS, who was accompanied by senior officers, had appeared before the committee to answer questions on the annual report of the Auditor General on the appropriation accounts and other public accounts for the 2010/2011 financial year.

Ms Kariuki promised to avail the documents which his senior officers, chief senior finance officer Rosemary Onam and senior chief finance officer Alice Gichu, seemed to be unaware of.

Ms Onam said the design of the agreements signed by the National Treasury and donors had made it difficult for her office to access expenditure documents from donor funded projects in the ministry.

“The donors always insist on working with the Ministry of Finance despite having projects in other areas while others decline to disclose their records,” said Ms Onam.

FUNDED BY DONORS

Ms Gichu noted that most of the projects had been funded by donors, including the World Bank and therefore it was hard for the department of agriculture to access the document.

“This Sh3.2 billion is for various projects that have been funded by several donors but we promise to look for the required documents,” she said.
Senior accountant Moses Gicheru concurred, saying he had no details how the funds were spent.

In its response to queries by the Audit Office, the department of agriculture had indicated that direct payments amounting to Sh3.2 billion were not captured  in the ministry’s ledger due to non-submission  of expenditure by the donors.

“Since appropriation in Aid relates to both payment and receipts from the donors, the expenditure of equal magnitude could not be expensed from the budget,” Ms Kariuki told the committee.

However, she promised to streamline the activities at the ministry to conform to the requirements of the Audit Office.

Mr Lameck Achenga of the Auditor General Office said their attempts to have the records were unsuccessful.

The ministry was also put to task for using funds in areas that they had not been allocated, saying that such practices could encourage corruption. “We do not wish to encourage crossing of votes for given projects as we believe it could hide corruption. This practice is unacceptable,” said Mr Namwamba.