Senate team cries foul over fund scarcity
Hillary Mageka @hillarymageka
Scarcity of resources is hampering the Senate’s ability to effectively oversight the 47 county governments and assemblies.
The Senate County Public Accounts and Investments Committee (CPAIC), tasked with over-sighting the counties in its quarterly report to the House said its operations have been hampered by a shortage of funds.
“The Committee has noted with concern that despite the heavy workload, its budgetary provision is inadequate,” Kisii Senator Sam Ongeri, who chairs the nine-member committee lamented.
Heavy mandate
“The committee holds two sittings per day for five days a week, to deal with its heavy mandate and to also clear its huge backlog to cover all the reports of the Auditor-General as required by law,” he added.
The senators have been pushing for a Sh2 billion oversight fund but their push has been frustrated by the National Assembly.
The committee checks the expenditure of billions of shillings disbursed to the devolved units by the National Treasury.
It also scrutinises the Auditor General’s report on the financial spending of the counties and grills governors and their accounting officers before writing reports.
Ongeri said the sessional nature of the committee which requires that it is is reconstituted every new session of Parliament, has also affected its functionality.
The transition, he said, takes long approximately three months, leading to the piling up of the backlog.
