Counties face severe sanctions as auditor talks tough over late submission of financial statements

The Star Kenya

Auditor General Nancy Gathungu on Wednesday urged the Senate's Public and Investment Committee to invoke sanctions on county officers who fail to submit financial statements for audit on time.

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00:00in 2 or 3 weeks before the audit. They have been facilitated to do the audit in those 3 weeks.

00:05They cannot stay for 1 week, wasting time waiting for documents, because it means they only have 2 weeks

00:11to confirm those documents and prepare the whole report. And that's why you end up with the issues of

00:18documents are not provided, or there was no support, or there was expenditures were not accounted for.

00:25So my instructions, and you may find it different for 2024 audits, is pull out. And if we have to go back,

00:36it will be at the cost of the client, because I am also using taxpayers' funds. So all of you chair,

00:42everybody knows their roles and responsibilities, that the auditor relies on documents.

00:47The auditor does not audit on the web. You come, you give us your financial statements,

00:51you have expenditure components, you have revenue components, support that. And that should be

00:57advanced preparation, even before we go in, because the law says you should be audited.

01:02And there is an auditor who will come. It's not a matter of my auditor coming in and that's when

01:06we are discussing what you did. Every document should be available. So there has been late submission.

01:11And the law says there are sanctions and penalties for late submission, or delayed submission,

01:18or even misleading the auditor. You can invoke the public auditor, and you have the power and authority

01:24of the chair, of the members, to sanction those entities, where I have clearly indicated there are

01:30no documents, or there was no support, or there was no accountability.

01:35There should be no discussions, or back and forth, or we did, we shall, or now we'll bring,

01:40or people bringing truckloads or cartloads of documents at the level of committee hearings.

01:45Because what happens now is the committee reopens the audit. Hold on, Chair, an audit is at a certain

01:52point in time. I give you a report as of 30th of June, year 2022, year 2023, year 2024.

01:59Now, when we restart auditing, an audit now in 2025 maybe, it means now we go back,

02:06instead of finalising the audit you are now waiting for, the reports you are waiting for, we waste time

02:11now to go back to people who did not cooperate on time, we waste the time of the committee,

02:16we waste resources and the time of the auditor, instead of sanctioning that person so that

02:21for the current audit cycle, they are now cooperating with the auditor.

02:28So that is a decision that the committee needs to make, that how far back can you go.

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